Ruby, Mother of Wolves
by SecretlySilentEvil
Summary: Fenrir, Hati, and Sköll—primarily the harbingers of Ragnarok—the subjects of a tale Ruby was once told by her mother. Now, roughly ten years later, Ruby found and named a pack of wolves after the legendary dogs on the anniversary of Summer's death. Kindhearted and unsure, she took them home to raise as her own.
1. Ruby's Pups

Ghosts of hurried breath faded against the forest's frozen landscape as bullet cases plopped gently into the snow. All around a young woman adorned in a black attire trimmed in red—a metallic silver cross hanging at her waist—corpses of what used to be a pack of bone plated, pitch black, bipedal wolf-like creatures dissolve into rose petals, something she's always found peculiar. Everyone else's kills turn to ash, why do hers' become roses? Question of the ages, she decided, before her scythe collapsed with the press of a button and she rested it on its hanger beneath her cloak.

Now that that interruption was over, which way was home again? After she mentally berated herself for leaving her scroll on her nightstand—it was charging, though that was her only excuse—the goth-themed girl turned away from the cliff face and strolled into the forest, drawing her blood red cloak back in on herself to ward away the cold.

Ruby stopped dead in her tracks at a sound she couldn't place. After a few seconds she moved on, only to hear it again on her next step. Like… dogs whining. Starving, in fact.

The girl's overly empathetic heart drew her away from what she assumed was home and in the direction of the noise. Not even ten feet away was a hole in the snow, barely wide enough for her to crawl in should she want to, but too dark to see down. Cautiously, Ruby looked around. Not a foot- or paw-print to be seen, and this is fairly old snow. At least two weeks since the last storm…

At the next whine Ruby threw caution to the wind and popped an unspent round from Crescent Rose. She ripped the bullet off the top with her teeth and dumped the red dust into her palm, a slow burn ignited with a quick shot of her red aura—a trick Uncle Qrow drilled into her head. The extra light revealed three wolf pups barely a few weeks old and thin enough to be a concern. One completely albino wolf, another with a yellow gray coat, and one final pup that donned completely black fur.

Ruby reached out with a hand—the one that isn't currently a makeshift flashlight—and pets the head of the closest albino pup. At simply her contact, it calmed down in its fitful rest and snuggled into her palm with a wolf approximation of contentedness across its face. Something in Ruby yelled at her to take care of this dying pack, almost as if a child whining for a lost mother. Without fully thinking, she made up her mind on the matter, silencing the odd whine leaving her mind relaxed again. Carefully, she dumped the burning Dust at the back of the den, and lifted the wolves into her arms without waking them.

'I should've taken that jerky I saw with me,' Ruby yet again chided herself, before she set back home in a new, seemingly more random direction.

* * *

Ruby wasn't sure what to be more amazed of, the fact she made it home so quickly after finding that den, or that Zwei was the only living being in the quaint little Patch cabin when she returned. All the lights were off, and it's only nine in the evening. Usually even the porch light is left on when her family heads to town, leaving her be on Mom's... anniversary.

With pups still in arm, she carefully clambered up the stairs towards her and Yang's shared bedroom. She set them down atop her own bed—taking a moment to admire the red of her comforter—before she rushed down the stairs to find food for them. On the way out the door, Ruby caught a glimpse of Zwei jumping up onto her bed. On the way to the kitchen, Ruby's mind took her down an admittedly important train of thought; how will everyone react to the pups? Qrow will probably be fine with there now being wild wolves to take care of, considering he doesn't actually live here. Dad and Yang's reactions are harder to guess though, they'll either stand on the side, or do whatever Raika says. Again.

Oh! And she needs to name them! If they're gonna stay, she'll need a way to identify them beyond their admittedly very different fur coats. Closing the fridge door much harder than anticipated, Ruby ran back up the stairs at full semblance speed with various foodstuffs piled up in her arms. Being honest with herself, she's not quite sure what wolves like to eat.

The topmost step jutted out further than fast-Ruby expected, and she tripped over herself, her cargo spilled across the hallway, various bags of berries and tupperware containers of leftovers dotting the hall like a minefield between her and the door—all accomplished with a small squeak of surprise. Definitely not an "eep!" Nope. Not this Ruby Rose.

At least that's what she says every time Yang calls her cute in that... infuriatingly teasing voice.

She also did not expect the pack of wolves to come bounding out of her room towards Ruby as if she were in danger. Even in their malnourished state they manage a defensive circle around Ruby and look threatening in a feral yet cute way.

Ruby lasted a whole three seconds before freaking out that her pups—yes, they're her's now. Nothing anyone can say to tell her different—wobbled a bit from the lack of energy. She stood up and with a few flashes of rose petals, picked back up the food she dropped and stacked it on her bed. One final flash and her scroll is in hand, trying hard not to typo while looking up the diet of a wolf.

'Big game, berries, mice birds and fish!' is all she really registered before grabbing some grapes and the leftover salmon from yesterday. After a second glance over the list of foods the wolves usually would eat, Ruby caught a side note about how they are usually more aggressive when food is involved, so it's unwise to approach them while feeding. That kept in mind, she laid a few bits of salmon and berries at the door before dashing behind her bed to watch.

The commotion attracted the black coated pup first, who began sniffing everything real close. Probably to determine if it's dangerous. As soon as he bit in, the albino-white pup came up and grabbed a grape, then the yellow-gray one jumped in between to nibble on the salmon.

Watching from the safety of her bed, Ruby starts thinking more about how to name her pups… The black coated pup looks and acts like one of the wolves from Mom's old stories, what with how it began shredding through the food once it gave an all clear, batting away the other two so it could eat more. What was his name…? Fe… Fen… Fenric? No that's not right…

"Fenrir." That's more like it. That'll be black-coat's name then, she decided before moving on.

The albino wolf acts a bit more reserved than its pack mates. It seemed content to simply feed off the berries that rolled away. Must be lower in the pack hierarchy? Ugh, add that to the list of things she needed to look up later. After it's had its fill of food, it trotted towards Ruby's hiding spot carefully. The little wolf didn't feel like it was exuding bad intentions, so she let it in, only to be surprised by how cold it felt to the touch. In fact, the white one matched the description of another wolf from Fenrir's legend.

"Hati." Ruby said aloud, stroking the admittedly cute wolf cuddling into her. Two named, one to go.

"So that leaves Sköll." The last wolf yipped at the sound of it's new name, bounding toward Ruby without the caution Hati had. It jumped up and into Ruby's arms where it lays down content. It even feels like Yang's semblance, vastly contrasting the colder than cold wolf cuddling against her legs.

Fenrir stayed at the food, living up to its namesake as the devourer. As it seemed to feel finished, it pushed the better scraps of salmon and berries toward Ruby, almost like an offering. Like thanks. Though she's full from dinner before her trip to the cliff, she picked up a few berries and ate them, anyway. Fenrir made a happy noise and climbed onto Ruby's bed, before patting it to signal Ruby get up.

"Come on Hati." She softly commands. Sköll still in arm, she hops into bed still dressed in her combat attire. Hati and Fenrir both snuggle into her sides, and help their alpha relax.

* * *

Incessant buzzing pulled Ruby from an oddly content nap. She yawned loudly, upset by the early morning light on her face. Another buzz draws her attention towards the nightstand.

Five missed messages.

What could Yang and Raika have wanted so early?

YXL - Ruby wake up before Raika does

Attached is a picture of the living room with three wolf pups cuddled together on the leather couch downstairs. Ruby groaned. She knew exactly what the problem was and didn't even bother to read the next few messages. Throwing the comforter off, she noted in the back of her mind she crashed in her combat outfit. Those wrinkles will be hard to get out.

With another yawn, she stepped off the stairs to a… shall we say strange image. Her stepmother—the blue haired, black soul'd she-devil that Dad still thinks was a good idea—is absolutely steaming and red with rage. Yang is doubled over laughing at something the short reaper can't see yet. Dad, predictably, is stood off to the side, torn between supporting his wife and laughing along with Yang.

Ruby raised a single eyebrow in question at Qrow, who had just emerged from the kitchen, a bowl of water in hand. Her uncle simply pointed at Raika's 'spot' on the couch where Fenrir stood atop a pillow, attempting to defend his perch from Sköll and Hati. Claws were clearly being thrown, but the couch had not been harmed. Fur flitted through the air before it landed along the length of the leathery battlefield of their playfight.

Another swat from Fenrir caused Hati to stumble and fall off. The albino wolf shook her head to rid the feeling of disorientation, and must've caught a glimpse of Ruby, cause as soon as she saw the red clad reaper she barked and ran up, her brothers not far behind. All three started yipping up from Ruby's heels, clearly wanting the love Ruby is far too willing to give them, as she crouched down.

"So Ruby," Qrow starts, which drew her attention from the wolves, "where did you find them?"

"Ummmm… In the woods?" Ruby replied questioningly, watching Qrow put down a bowl of water for the pups.

"Well obviously, I think he means where in the woods, Rubes." Yang managed between deep breaths, finally recovered from the pups play fighting on the couch.

"I dunno." Ruby shrugged her shoulders to emphasize her confusion as her voice slightly raised with nervousness and unease. "I was lost, heard them, and they brought me home."

"It doesn't matter where she got them! I just want them gone!" Raika shouted, earning a glare from Qrow and growls from the pups. She hardly flinched in response. Ruby can't help but feel her wolves are too cute for those growls to be effective for very a long time.

Qrow returns his attention to Ruby, "they brought you home? How would they have known?"

Ruby thinks about it for a bit, trying to rationalize what happened in her own head as well. "I don't know. I started walking where I thought was home, found them, and when I picked them up something told me home was the other way." Qrow hummed at the new information, before he turned the conversation back to the matter at hand.

"What are their names, Ruby? You found them, I can only guess you've named them already." Ruby lights back up, forgetting entirely about the earlier enigma.

"Well, the black one I named Fenrir," Ruby purposely ignored Yang's and Tai's flinch at the reminder of Summer's story, "because he ate everything I gave him. It only felt right to name the others from those stories too. It helped that this one," Ruby reached down to nuzzle Sköll's little head, "is really warm, and this little one," Ruby made sure Hati got the same affection to clarify who, "is freezing. So Sköll and Hati just fit." Ruby giggled as Sköll and Hati nuzzled into her, and Fenrir tried to act indignant about the fact he was only named as such because of his tendency to eat a lot, but the more he looked toward the pack huddle, the more he wanted to join. Eventually he shook his head and leapt towards Ruby, whom allowed the force to push her onto her back.

"You seem to have it under control," Tai spoke up, "why don't you raise them, Qrow?" Ruby's distress at the mere idea of separating seeped into the pups, causing them to curl against her. Hati and Sköll wine, while Fenrir got up on all fours to growl.

Seeing the beast raise in defense, Qrow lets out a faint chuckle. "No can do Tai, they seem to be Ruby's."

"Good two birds one stone, get rid of the mongrels and the girl!" Everybody sucked their breath in at Raika's harsh words, more shocked she said them out loud othan them actually having existed at all.

"Now that's too far!"

Seeing the turn of events, Ruby turned to her loyal defender and rubbed Fenrir's head a little as a surge of confidence scorched through her. Finally, she could be free of this hole. Finally, she could get actual training in with Qrow. The scene before her quickly changed from one of defense and hiding, to her being in power, an alpha in her own right.

"No she's right. I should go. It'll be easier on all of us, and besides, you can finally help me with Crescent Rose." Turning to Qrow, Ruby gave her most convincing smile as she stared her uncle down.

Sighing to control his anger, Qrow looked down at his favorite niece. "I feel neither of us should be the one to have final say in this Ruby, but considering what I just heard, I agree with you. Now, go pack up while I have a chat with your father."

* * *

Yang walked into her and Ruby's shared bedroom to find a veritable storm of rose petals that sparked from the girl's forced, sharp movements. Angry muttering could be heard from her mouth—certain words Yang could've sworn her sister wouldn't have been able to muster forth—calling Raika and Dad all sorts of names. The wolves followed close behind, seeing where Ruby stops, walking over, and repeating the process each time their 'mother' blinked across the room. Suddenly Ruby sat down on her bed, sighed, and flopped backwards.

"Ruby?" Yang called out, which received a priceless reaction from her sister, if she were only in the mood. As is, only a small smile shined through on the older's face, before it reverted back to something between shock, pride and anger. "I didn't think you had it in you, to just leave like that."

Ruby sighed and flopped backward once again, "I didn't either." A small silence flitted between the two sisters.

The brawler began wiping tears away from her eyes as she tried to figure out how to feel. "Just… Just stay in contact, okay? I don't want my baby sis growing up just yet."

Walking up to her sister, Ruby gave Yang the strongest hug she could manage, revealing how much she is shaking in panic over what all has happened. "I'll try not to sis."

Feeling the younger girl's tumultuous emotions, the wolves began circling the girls before curling up around Ruby, an action that brought comfort to the nervous wreck.

In a wash of confidence, Ruby squeezed Yang one last time before standing up. "I should finish packing though."

Snapping her arm out, Yang pulled the little girl back to her. "Don't leave me here…"

* * *

Ruby's hand halted its turning on the knob of the mahogany door at Tai's firm yet careful touch. "Ruby, I'm sorry for Raika, you know how she is," Tai chuckled, "sometimes she just needs… reminded… of the fact this is a family. So please don't go?"

"It's too late, Dad," was all that she said before the crimson clad girl—no, young woman—stepped into the field of alabaster, as a fresh snow covered the landscape yet again. Feeling her pack close behind, a hooded Ruby began her trek into town towards Qrow's apartment, anticipating everything that could come from this. Not everything is as bleak as it first appears, the caped-girl's optimism prevented her from being blind to the silver lining. Sure, she already missed Yang, but being able to keep her wolves—unofficially-officially her pups—and the training she can get from living with her uncle and mentor would make this all worth it.

Whatever it is.

Oh, and there is the satisfaction of hearing her old man kick that bitch out of the house. That was well worth it.


	2. A Year With Qrow

By the time she reached the center 'plaza' of Patch, the subtle flurries Ruby left her Dad's house in had flourished into a heavy blizzard that blanketed every surface in mounds of snow. The constant downfall became so bad that the wolves couldn't wade through it anymore, so she currently carried them in her arms under her dark red cloak. Fierce winds swept through town, each gust kicked up motionless snow on a fresh ride, and in the process made the poor girl's cloak flap about, never able to come to rest and provide Ruby the warmth she oh-so-desperately craved.

The howling of wind nearly drowned out chimes, the tell-tale sign to employees that someone has entered the building, if the clunk of Ruby's boots didn't give it away immediately afterwards.

A cry of "be right there" sounded forth from one of the rooms behind the counter. Ruby put her pups down, before she took a moment to shake the snow from her cloak. She glanced up to find herself in a nicely furnished lobby. Immediately to the left of the door is a pair of leather couches and a loveseat that surrounded a glass table and a very inviting fireplace. On the other side of the room was a small dining room, furnished with a mahogany table and chairs, a kitchen visible behind it. Throughout the lobby, the walls were adorned with generic framed pictures, simple things like flowers in vases.

"Hello!" A friendly male voice spoke up from a counter toward the back. "Can I help you?"

"Uhm, yes," Ruby's voice cracked, and she cleared her throat to stop it, making her aware of a very pressing need, "Do you have any hot chocolate?" The man smiled.

"Yeah. That'll be one lien," he half-shouted as he went behind the counter into the employee break room, presumably to grab Ruby her beverage.

Ruby walked over and dropped herself into one of the couches around the fireplace, her hands held out to warm up. Sköll, the yellow-gray wolf, jumped up into her lap to help warm her, using his natural heat to chase away leftover cold, and somehow he managed to be the cutest thing Ruby has ever seen in her thirteen summers of life. The other two wolves come around and lay next to her feet. As the attendant returned with a mug of cocoa, he seemed to give Ruby a once over as if to confirm something.

"Little miss, you wouldn't happen to be Mr. Branwen's niece, would you?" At a quick nod, not fully aware of much other than the chocolate and Sköll's warmth, a card flashed in her view. "I was told to hand, and I quote, 'a cloaked girl with three adorable pups' his room key."

"Oh, uhh, thanks!" The aforementioned cloaked girl grabbed the keycard from the counter-guy's hand, and stuffed it in the flaps of the cloak around her neck. At the man's questioning gaze, Ruby replied, counting her reasons off on her fingers, "no pockets, no one ever looks in the cloak when pickpocketing, and I am not an easy person to mug." He shrugged and returned behind the counter at the back of the room. Ruby pulled her scroll from her cloak, and opened the message center to private message Qrow, 'I take it you're cleaning the apartment? Come get me when you're done, I'm in the lobby,' before leaning back in the chair, cherishing the warmth of Sköll.

* * *

Soft shaking brought Ruby back to the world of the living, and with a few blinks of her eyes noticed her uncle standing over her.

"Was this morning that rough for you? It's not like you to fall asleep before dinner at the least." Qrow smiled, watching it slowly dawn on his niece what time it is. Ruby shot up in her seat, looking around the apartment building's lobby for a window to see where the sun is. 'Wait, blizzard. No sun.' She thought to herself, relaxing once more.

"No, just comfy." Emphasizing her point, the girl stood up to stretch, and nearly forgot Sköll cuddled into her. The pup was sent sprawling to the ground, only to be caught in a flurry of petals. "Oh no! I'm sorry Sköll."

"...comfy. Yup. Come on. Let's go to the room." The uncle-niece duo walked up three flights of stairs and a hall before they stood before the room. A plain white plaque bore the number of his room, 314. When the door opened with a swipe of Qrow's keycard, it pulled itself into the wall, and revealed the two room apartment she remembered. The first room was a rather open living room: television, couches, and a small but functional kitchen in the corner. Straight across from the hallway door was another door she knew led to Qrow's bedroom, and from there into the only bathroom in the apartment.

"Since I only have the one bed, I took the liberty of cleaning it out and putting your stuff back there. I'll just sleep on the couch whenever I'm not out on some mission or another."

Ruby nodded and walked to the kitchen to dispense the cup from her hot cocoa, only to realize the trash can was filled to the brim with trash, kept closed with at least a dozen empty pizza boxes that sat on top.

"Uncle Qrow. I like pizza as much as the next person, but how can you keep fit on that kinda diet?" Ruby quipped, turning around to watch as her uncle waved her off.

"Hunting, as it turns out, is really good exercise," he pointed toward the fridge, "there are sodas and sparkling waters in there, I'll go get dinner later." Qrow then smiled, a look somewhere between scheming and self-satisfaction, "you have a year and a half between now and when your sister goes to Beacon. That's plenty of time to get you ready for that level of combat. Beginning tomorrow."

Ever so slowly, Ruby's small grin widened.

* * *

 **The Next Day, Eighteen Months till Beacon...**

"Why exactly did you bring me to the Patch range?" Ruby's confusion was not misplaced, gun ranges are normally reserved for civilians, as hunters and those who aspire to become one could find better targets for training in the wilderness.

Qrow said nothing as he led her to the back of the room. He pressed a few buttons on the side panel, which pulled up a holographic beowulf. Regions throughout the beast's body signalled where to aim.

"You only use Crescent Rose's gun mechanism as a way to gain momentum in your swings, correct?"

"That, and I can always stab her blade into the ground for stability when firing."

"Well, let's put it this way; you won't always have time to do that, or it won't give you enough coverage. I also know that your scythe has a lot of recoil, so I can't start you off with that." Qrow reaches into his jacket pocket and pulled out a shiny silver handgun, "this is a fifty caliber hand cannon. Since I helped you make Crescent Rose, I know that this has approximately one-fifth the recoil she does. I want you to come down here whenever I'm out—or every weekend during school—and fire at the beowulf. Minimize bullet spread, but also work on holding down its recoil, and get it to the point where you can hold it completely still while firing. I want its recoil to not affect you at all." Qrow clapped his niece's shoulder, watching her face twist in acceptance of the challenge. "I'll come and check on you at lunch and dinner every day you come down here."

"So does this mean I can-"

"You don't get to customize the pistol until you've mastered its recoil!" Qrow exclaimed as he walked away and out the building. Ruby pouted, then stuck out her tongue in concentration, aiming down the sights at the holographic beowulf.

* * *

 **Twelve Months till Beacon…**

If there's one sound Ruby could listen to for days on end, it would be the scraping of whetstone on Crescent Rose's blade. The sound was so satisfying, so fulfilling, that she was sure she could hear it every day for years, and not have to fill any lonesome void.

Suffice to say she was not happy when the apartment manager came to her Uncle's room to tell the cloaked girl she wasn't allowed to sharpen the blade indoors. She protested, and in the end the agreement reached allowed her to do it either outside, or in the lobby on particularly cold days. This also lowered the crime rate in the immediate area. Apparently a thirteen-almost-fourteen-year old girl running a whetstone over her blade like an executioner frightened people. Ruby wasn't sure why.

It wasn't like she was sharpening for no reason right now either. The other day, she had impaled a beowulf against a tree, and the tree actually stopped her cut. That was her first indication that it wasn't sharp enough. Afterwards, under closer inspection, she realized that the tree she nicked dented her blade!

"Gah!" Ruby's half-heartedly angry thoughts finally shook her back into reality, causing her to look about in confusion for a moment. She sat in the lobby while her uncle grabbed coffee, with a much larger pack of wolves laying around her. Each wolf had grown stupendously. According to the website she has been using, they're already past half their full grown size, which is to be expected. Also according to that website, she was lucky she found them when she did. They start to eat solids around three to four weeks old. A bit sooner and she would've been screwed.

Then something odd happened. Outwardly, the average observer would have seen Ruby freak out, and fall backward off the bench she was sitting on, maybe even hear the albino wolf grumble. Inwardly, however, Ruby heard, 'don't think that way, momma,' from Hati's direction. Naturally, she wasn't prepared for it, and squeaked in surprise. She fell off her bench and hit her head on the ground. Crescent Rose's safety forced the scythe closed as it hits the floor, clattering away in a safe, collapsed red box.

"Squirt?" Her uncle asked, his brow lifting, as Ruby crashed to the ground in an undignified heap. He spotted the folded weapon on the ground and looks back to her, sipping his coffee. "I have to admit munchkin, I did not expect you to fall apart in the time it took me to get coffee. We have more work ahead of us than I thought," he joked, smirk hidden behind his mug.

"It's not like that! Hati... just spoke to me." Ruby mentioned, looking at the white wolf in fascination for a moment, before she turned back to Qrow. An odd look grew on his face.

"She spoke to you? I'm assuming you mean with words and not some kind of barking," he asked, seeking some clarification as he drank his coffee. He looked into the brown, creamy substance and wondered if he should have gone for a stronger blend. If he's going to deal with Ruby having a mental breakdown, he might need it. "Are you sure you didn't just imagine it or something?"

'Tall human is back, does he bring food?' came a deeper tone as Fenrir stood and stretched, the wolf's jaw worked a moment before he padded over and around Qrow. He sniffed at the air, then let out a soft huffing sound and moved back to Ruby. 'Hungry, we eat now?' The 'voice' came again from the black wolf as he looked expectantly at the girl. Ruby stared back until she broke eye contact, looking to Qrow with wide eyes. She hardly believed the words herself.

"He said he's hungry…"

Qrow's confusion turned to genuine worry as he crouched to bring himself level with his niece, "Ruby, Fenrir didn't say anything. Well, not with words. There was a growl. So I need to be very clear on this. Are you actually hearing voices, or just interpreting their sounds and body language?" Ruby looked at the wolves as they gathered around her. She continued feeling uncertain, and the concern on her uncle's face failed to provide much comfort. The girl laid her hands on Hati and Sköll, which seem to settle them. The warm fur under one hand was a nice counterbalance to the cold fur under the other hand; both provided steady comfort for the young girl herself as she answered the question.

"Voices. I hear them as if they were talking to me." As she glanced at Fenrir, she wondered how he can be hungry again already. She had fed them just over an hour ago.

A chuffing sound came from Sköll that sounded suspiciously like a snicker. 'Fen always hungry momma, Fen get fat.' She heard, before the chuffing continued, joined softly by Hati. The black wolf gave a growl of irritation, before bowling his sibling over. A play fight started as Fenrir tried to ensure his dominance over his brother and sister. Qrow watched in amusement as Hati immediately capitulated, while Sköll seems to drag the play out. The professional huntsman's mind turned over what he's learned about Ruby and the wolves, before a curious thought surfaced. His gaze turned into a calculating stare. He picked up Crescent Rose and handed it to his niece.

"Ruby come with me a moment, leave the wolves. We will be just around the corner." She hesitated, but obeyed. Her eyes watched as Fenrir managed to pin Sköll down and lay his body over his brother to assert himself. The antics received a smile from the young girl. Around the corner Qrow bent back to look at the wolves, before returning his attention to Ruby. He wondered if he wasn't going just as crazy as he was concerned his adorable niece is. He shook the thought off and turned back to Ruby, who remained watching him with curiosity.

"I want you to call them over here Squirt. But do it without saying anything. Just focus on thinking that you want them to come to you." Now it was Ruby's turn to give him a skeptical look, before she shrugged and closed her eyes. Qrow moved to watch the wolves again. There was a moment where nothing seemed to happen, before ears perked up and heads swiveled toward them. Ruby's little pack of adolescent wolves stood and darted over to them in a hurry to circle the young girl.

They were hearing each other's thoughts. It should be impossible, and yet the evidence was right in front of him in the form of his giggling niece. She bent down to scratch behind the ears of an insistent Sköll. The old hunter rubbed at his chin as a grin slowly spread. His hand moved to ruffle Ruby's head playfully, before he spoke again.

"Well, it looks like I'll have to come up with a way to train all three of them along side you."

* * *

 **Nine Months till Beacon…**

'Mama!' At the cry of distress, Ruby's head turned in the direction of the forest, rose petals flew from the tips of her hair. Hati called in such a fearful tone, and Ruby's heart sped up dramatically. With pistol in hand, she darted out of the gun range without so much as thinking to turn off the holographic grimm.

'Sköll, Fenrir, do you know where she is?'

'No,' came their "voices" one after the other, and from the tone Ruby could tell they were worried too, despite how hard Fenrir tried to hide it. At their negatives, she kicked her semblance into high gear. At such high speeds, Ruby barely registered as the wind snapped tree branches and whipped about anything not nailed down. She scanned her surroundings, which was little more than a blurry mess, looking for a spot of white amongst the green backdrop of the forest she just charged into.

To her left, Ruby heard Sköll's beastial howling over the wind of her semblance, and she stopped as quickly as she could. Like a desperate, worried parent, she dashed off in the same direction as Sköll, before the wave could even catch up to her. A wall of vines, thicket, and bushes stop her in her tracks, with just enough space between each plant to see the other side. In the thick of the forest lay Hati with a nasty wound on her side. Sköll towered protectively between the white wolf and an Ursa Major, of all things. The best way Ruby could describe the grimm in this moment was big, ugly, spiky, and threatening. So many spikes, not enough time. The fearful mother of wolves pulls on the thicket in vain, nature's might too much for young Ruby. Quickly, she checked her unnamed pistol. Ruby realized that unfortunately, she didn't reload before she ran out the door like a fool. All she can do is sit down, and watch.

The ursa crept nearer, strangely cautious of the wolf in front of it. Creature of anonymity or no, it displayed a sense of self typical of much older Grimm. It pawed a bit too close; the ursa stepped one back when Sköll yipped at it viciously in protection of his sister. He turned his snout skyward, let out a howl, and…

The strangest feeling washed over Ruby, like she's tapped into her semblance, but very obviously not her semblance manifested. A decent sized boulder formed in the air right above the ursa, bits of pebble and sand flew toward a center mass. It dropped after it formed, and caught alight midway down. Never has an ursa sounded more confused than when the boulder smashed its cranial cavity and spread its fire along the slowly fading corpse.

Fenrir rushed around the corner, grabbed a limb in his mouth, and without even blinking, ripped it from it's socket. He shook it in his jaw before he threw it at the wall of thicket between Ruby and her wolves.

The self proclaimed mother of wolves hiccuped, wide eyed, and slowly let her tears run free. Sobs echoed into the forest. Ruby realized just how close she was to losing Hati and Sköll.

Sköll turned towards his mother and tilted his head, 'what's wrong mamma?'

She smiled, but didn't stop sobbing. Behind her, something rustled in the underbrush, and Ruby panicked at the noise. She turned around, petals flying every which way, trigger half pulled on her pistol. Not that it will help much, what with its empty magazine, but still.

Her uncle stood there, hands held up, one clearly clasped around a bottle, "well this looks like a story."

* * *

 **Four Months till Beacon…**

"So... why did you want me to come to the shooting range with you?" Jaune looked up at his much taller father.

"You yourself said you want to be a hero. And while hunter is, well a bit out of the question already, I wanted to give you a chance." His dad replied. The brown hair signature of Jaune's dad's mop of hair contrasted starkly with his own blond. "So, for today at least, you're gonna join me somewhere you'll get very accustomed to in police work. You're not gonna be shooting anything today, so just get used to the atmosphere… or something. Talk to people. And don't get yourself into too much trouble."

"Got it, trouble levels will be kept at a reasonable average." Jaune smirks.

His father glared at him halfheartedly before grumbling, "smartass."

Jaune walked to sit down at a bench and wait, content to watch his father empty magazine after magazine of blanks into the holographic grimm. For a while, that's all he did, but a bit into his stay, his patience wore thin. As he gazed around the range he was forced against his will to sit in, taking note of everyone there. Rather typical people for the most part, civilian game hunters and the occasional jock who decided gun lessons would be fun. But at the last range stood a girl with a powerful looking handgun in… well, in hand. Her range set to the furthest setting, and she looked to be firing live ammo.

Having found that strange, Jaune then eyed at rest of her, curious about her identity. She had an admittedly beautiful face, and couldn't be much younger than himself. That's good. But perhaps the most identifying possession of her's had to be the long red cloak draped across her shoulders.

Now, who else did Jaune know where's a red cloak? He would swear if asked, he's seen another very similar to it. He stood, and walked toward her with the intent of asking about the cloak, and maybe score a few points in the relationship department, when about halfway he stopped in his stride.

' _The huntsman! What's his name? Crow? The guy with the scythe! That's where I've seen a cloak like that before!_ ' Jaune's eyes widen, as he looked at the young woman with less curiosity and more fear. 'Could they be related?'

Gulping, Jaune continued forward, fully intent on completing his original mission and talk to the little girl before him, despite every cell in his body screaming at him to turn around. A few feet from the girl, the first thing he noticed was her perfume, the gentle aroma of roses almost had him intoxicated right then and there. It took the rest of his willpower that wasn't currently keeping him from running not to sigh in appreciation. Steadying his heart and conviction, he stepped forward.

* * *

'Will he just stop it? This is really weirding me out!' Ruby screamed into the recesses of her brain. If she had just decided to wear her ear protection, this entire situation could have been avoided! But no, when this Jaune fellow started talking, she made the mistake of turning toward the voice, so now she can't even feign not realizing he was talking to her! Now, Ruby was to be subject to the most awkward moment in her life. Backed against a counter, while some awkward boy hit on her.

Finally, Ruby decides she's had enough, "look, Jaune, is it?" That seems to have shut him up, good. "How do I put this politely, you're not… not my type."

Jaune instead foolishly latched onto that as some fading spot of hope. "Oh! Let me guess, your type is more the strong, hunter type, isn't it? Well, I'll let you know that," he paused to look himself over, before looking back up sheepishly, "despite the… admittedly farmboy appearance, I will be applying to Beacon Academy this summer!" The—as he put it—farmboy puffed out his chest at those words, looking to Ruby like a full-of-itself cat that just caught a mouse.

She giggles a bit, before sighing, "that's not what I meant Jaune."

"Then what is it? Do you like guitar? I can play a pretty mean-"

"Jaune, I'm gay." Ruby interrupted poor Jaune before he could dig himself further into the pit he than already had. Jaune's confidence deflated instantly at her words, and he looked down, ashamed.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, you didn't know." Ruby sighed, and ran her free hand through her short locks of hair. "I… don't do this often, but… would you like to hang out anyways…? I don't have many friends."

Jaune perked up, and instantly replied, "Sure!"


	3. Raised By Wolves

A loud smash brought Ruby from her deep slumber. In her panic, rose petals were thrown throughout the small apartment she lived in with her uncle. A second later, Ruby stood in her pajamas, handgun practically stuffed in her unfortunate uncle's face.

A singular raised finger pushed the pistol aside, "good morning Ruby. Get dressed, I got a surprise for ya."

A very sleepy expression finally took in what happened, and with a yawn she replied, "...why did you slam the door open then?"

"I knew it would get you up." That comment received some not-so-nice mumbling.

* * *

Qrow quickly learned during his mentorship over Ruby that her curiosity is a force to be reckoned with. She really did not like being left it the dark about anything, and it showed when they left this morning for Vale on this surprise trip, barely catching their flight.

What made the situation at hand worse was the wolves did not appreciate the cramped space they were forced into, and their stress began showing on Ruby. Her right eye would twitch every so often, and she couldn't help but fidget in her seat. Before, Ruby had no problems with bullhead flight.

To Qrow's immense relief, his niece, and more importantly, the wolves, calmed down upon touchdown in Vale. They didn't last long before bounding off towards the most open area in sight. After their weapons had been checked and approved as registered, Ruby had walked towards her children only to be tackled to the ground by all three of them. The squeal of her fall fueled the triplets to continue their ministrations, only letting their mother free from their torture after they were sure she wouldn't do that to them again.

A lunch break and 'small' walk later, all five sat in a forested clearing in Beacon Academy's shadow, which only served to increase Ruby's confusion and curiosity. What purpose would Qrow have taken her all the way to Beacon? Well, she had always been hounded for not voicing her concerns, so into the breach she goes.

"Why are we here?" Ruby asks, only getting a raised finger from Qrow indicating to wait. She huffs in frustration, and turns towards her children, preferring to watch them play, and listen to the voices instantly broadcast from their heads to hers instead of stress over his latest surprise.

A rustle of movement to Ruby's right pulls her attention towards a slightly amused, greying, middle aged man in a green turtleneck and black overcoat. His companion is noticeably less amused, in her equally casual-fancy black dress; pleated blouse and stockings under a pencil skirt.

Ruby slouches and drops her head to stare at the ground, addressing Qrow with, "so you took me into the forest to meet two people under the shadiest conditions? Qrow, was there really no better place for this?"

"I am of a similar mindset," came a snappy retort from the other female in the area. Ruby lifts her head, catching the tail end of a glare directed at her uncle, making the young girl chuckle.

The grey haired man merely nods towards Qrow as he makes eye contact with Ruby while he responds. "Your uncle's reasons are his own, though I would very much like to know them."

She flails her arms around while yelling at her uncle, "See Qrow?! They agree!"

Kicking off the tree Qrow had lazily been leaning against, he gestures to the two strangers. "You already know my reasons Oz. Professors, this is my niece, Ruby and these," Qrow pulls a few folded sheets of paper from his pants pocket to hand off to Oz, "would be my letter of recommendation and her current transcript at Signal so that she may enroll."

"Wait, Oz as in Ozpin? As in the headmaster of Beacon Ozpin? Why am I being enrolled into Beacon already? Don't I have like another two years still?" Ruby's voice rose in pitch as she ranted, her clear confusion, terror, and anxiety rising with each breath.

"What? Did you forget what I said when you starting living in my place? I had a year and a half to get you ready for Beacon's level of combat, and I did my job." Qrow's expression shifts to smugness on those last few words, clearly pleased with himself.

Ozpin, meanwhile, stuffed the papers in his suit pocket for later reading, before he continued, "Just one more thing for me to do."

Ruby's naturally high reflexes would not have normally been able to bring her semblance up in time, but before it could even leave Ozpin's hand, several rose petals flit into existence. A ten lien coin slowed to a fourth of its normal speed as it flied from the headmaster's hand, allowing Ruby to easily catch it. Time sped back up, and she unravelled her fist from around the coin to stare at it in confusion. Looking back up, Ozpin simply smirked, turned around, and walked away with Glynda.

* * *

With a loud whoosh, Qrow entered the room and shifted from bird-form right in front of Glynda, effectively derailing whatever train of thought she was discussing with the headmaster.

"Ah, glad you could make it," Ozpin said before the two 'grown adults' could begin their bickering, "coffee?"

Instead, Qrow lifted a newly purchased alcoholic beverage into plain view, eliciting disapproving stares from both of his colleagues. He pops the cork off and pours most of it into a steel flask. "Nah, I'm good."

"Does Ruby know?" Ozpin says with a mixture of worry and the aforementioned disappointment as he leans forward on his ornate desk.

"No. Whenever I do this I disappear for a few days. She can take care of herself." He took a sip of his drink—from the smell of it, mead—and only stopped when he noticed they were waiting for him. "What?"

"While that's good to hear, I didn't mean about your drinking problem. Did you tell her?" The headmaster's hands gestured toward Qrow in a manner denoting his entire existence.

Qrow drew in a deep, resigned breath. "...No, doesn't seem like the right time yet."

"And why is that? You said she could take care of herself." Oz continued pressing, clearly wanting Qrow to break.

"I…" he shook his head to focus on the present, "That's not the point of this meeting. We're here to talk about Ruby's enrollment, not how she was raised."

Ozpin nodded his head, deciding to drop the matter, "Very well. Glynda, you're our aura expert. Anything you'd like to bring up?"

"Actually yes. Her aura felt four times as strong as you'd expect of even a fully trained huntsman. Her wolves gave off the same impression. At first I thought it they all had abnormally strong auras, but when you threw the coin I saw every one of their auras dip to compensate for the impact." Two of the only things that could still get Glynda excited were anger, and aura, the latter of which showing here. As she continued in her speculations, she got more and more animated with her movements, ending with her catching her own excitement and stomping down on it. "Not only that, but I felt the same energy drone that I complained about before Summer's silver eyes unlocked. She's getting close."

"Thank you Glynda. That will be interesting to see how it affects her combat. Qrow, didn't you also say she named those wolves after her mother's story?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"So far we know that they can speak to Ruby telepathically, Sköll has already manifested his trap, even if he doesn't know how to use it yet, and they share a collective aura pool. Sounds familiar?" Seeing it dawn on Qrow in the form of disbelief and stupefaction, Oz continues, "That is one of the reasons I agreed to this."

"I don't believe it. They're just coincidences. Nothing more." Qrow stood up and walked to the window he flew in through.

"You know that can't be all it is. You are in my inner circle, after all."

* * *

Skyhawk, the bullhead's older brother. A massive, towering, flying hunk of metal the size of three bullheads wing to wing. That is what picked up Ruby and the rest of the Beacon initiates in Vale. A freaking skyhawk. She couldn't believe it; she thought they were reserved for military extractions from highly treacherous regions only. Shortly after boarding the vessel, she noticed the vast amounts of space there was. At least a hundred people could ride one of these with room to spare for enough furniture for each of them. There were only twenty, maybe thirty students on board right now.

As Ruby was wandering the halls of this behemoth of Atlas masterwork, she found a nice space to drop off the wolves and let them roughhouse as much as they wished. She loved them dearly, but even as their officially unofficially official mother, they got a bit restless and crazy if they weren't allowed to burn off excess energy.

Well… mostly Sköll, but that's beside the point.

Now she sat in relative silence—ignoring the still instantaneous communication between mother and wolf—with naught but her scroll to entertain, or in this case, torture, her until liftoff, and torture it definitely was. For staring into her face, in a large, annoying red circle next to her sister's face was the number one hundred, fifty six.

Had it really been that many? Ruby couldn't tell as her finger hesitated over the image, debating to finally make contact after the year and a half without. Her nervousness could be felt by the wolves, causing all of them to pour their love and sense of family over her, but even hat wasn't enough to get past the lump in her throat and fear in her heart. After a few seconds of internal debate, Ruby pressed down on the button to read the messages.

Or she would have, if she weren't suddenly implanted in the wall beside her with a very audible crash, followed by many less audible cracks. Ruby's fight or flight response kicked into high gear, pulling her legs up to try and kick her assailant off, before recognizing the smell of burnt Yang. Looking up, Ruby saw what might be the worst way to reunite with a family member, ever. The scene that filled her vision was her sister's signature red eyes, fiery blonde hair, and enough actual fire to have evacuated the room they were in. The blonde yelled something at her, but she couldn't tell what, pain overwriting her hearing.

"Ow. Yang. Collarbone. Useful. Would like to keep." Ruby wrapped her hands around Yang's arm, trying to push against the pressure to no avail. She had always been stronger than the reaper, at least as far as brute strength is concerned. Out of the corner of her eye, she barely catches another, distinctly male, head of blond hair turn around and walk away.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR DAMN COLLARBONE," a shift in pressure and grip said otherwise, "WHY DIDN'T YOU AT LEAST READ MY TEXTS?!"

"What makes you think I haven't?" Yang simply points at Ruby's forgotten scroll on the floor. "Oh. Right, transparent screens." Ruby's face drops back to its nervous outlook at the reminder.

"Yeah, about as transparent as you. How are you even here? We're off to Beacon." As Yang speaks, the lilac begins to return before suddenly her completely scattered mind goes full circle and she is blazing anew. "YOU COULD'VE AT LEAST TOLD ME I WOULD STILL GET TO SEE YOU!"

"Yang, let me down please." She tries, thankfully getting immediate compliance. Straightening out her clothes, the reaper shoots forward and wraps her arms around the rightfully pissed off blonde. "I'm sorry, I know I should have said something. Qrow has been training me ever since, and you know what that means."

The fire fades ever so slightly as the older sister reciprocates her hug, "Oh come on, his training isn't that bad."

"No, but it's time consuming. I barely had time for my own wolves, when we weren't trying to figure out how I'd fight with them." Ruby pulls away from the hug, and steps back, sitting down on the bench she had been sitting on earlier.

"So they're still around?" Yang questions, laying her hand on the wall and leaning into it. Watching her sister closely, all she got was a smirk. "You gonna answer me or-" her sentence was cut off as a warm mass impacts her back, knocking the brawler to the ground. Rolling over, Yang was immediately subjected to one big happy puppy. Sköll was relentless in his face-licking, obviously much happier to see Yang than his siblings. Hati strolls over just to lay down next to Ruby, not caring whether she's teased and called 'momma's girl' by Sköll again. Fenrir bounded down the hallway and batted Sköll off the brawler, quickly causing a fight, blurring their fur colors of black, grey, and yellow.

"I take that as a yes." Yang finally manages after her experience. She grins after hearing Ruby giggle.

* * *

'It's showtime!' Ruby stood by the steel box that was the rocket locker administered to her by Beacon to house her precious sweetheart, which she was currently caressing as she mentally psyched herself for what was to come.

The previous day had been hectic catching up with Yang, while trying to find the auditorium where Professor Ozpin gave a mildly unnerving speech that seemed to do its job at chasing those of weaker constitutions away. After that, everyone slept in the ballroom together—which was interesting to say the least—but now the sun was rising and initiation began.

And Ruby was ready for it.

Yang on the other hand still had some inner worries with her sister's presence at the top. Ruby's clear confidence only made it worse. 'How much can somebody change in so little time?' The Blonde hid her woes and sauntered up to the obvious weapons nut, wanting to see if she really had changed,. "Well you look confident. Any reason?" Leaning in so as to both corner Ruby and look her in the eyes, Yang couldn't spot any signs of it being a mask.

Ruby visibly jumped, really not prepared for her sister's appearance. Quickly regaining her composure, she turned towards Yang and holstered Crescent Rose on her back. "Let's just say, monsters are my speciality. People not so much."

"Still an introvert I see, good to know not everything about you has changed." Yang says, crashing into the rocket-locker beside her. "But, I guess change is all that can really come from Qrow's influence and three foreign voices in your head."

"Hey, don't blame my kids." Reaching into the locker, Ruby pulls out her last item of note, her pistol. Still gunmetal grey and unfinished, stencil marks in place with some light etching already started. Turning back towards her conversation partner, she smiles at the look Yang is giving her. Putting the gun in the folds of her cloak, Ruby sighs, and runs her other hand through her hair, "Have I really changed that much?"

"Well, you're not exactly the same little sister I knew. You used to only mutter curses, but when we left the Skyhawk, I'm pretty sure I heard you say 'goddamnit' as I went to hang with my old friends. And then there's the subject of your wolves. Normally I'd say calling them your kids is an example of classic Ruby childishness, but you've taken that one to heart. If I didn't know better, you could have actually given birth to them." Her gaze turns more serious, looking her sister over, "Unless… You're into that sort of thing."

"YANG!" Ruby's face flushed redder than her namesake, a punch tossed at her laughing sister's shoulder.

The blonde, shrugging off the surprisingly hard blow while trying to harass her sister more, barely manages to say with another shrug, "What? No kink shaming here."

After throwing another punch, this time narrowly dodged by a still laughing Yang, Ruby retorted with, "You have no room to talk! Remember how you were during your boy craze?!"

Finally calm, the blonde bombshell replies with a wistful tone and a wave of her hand, "Ah, yes. The boy-bands."

"HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!" Ruby eyes her rocket locker, thinking it might be a good spot to hide. Maybe even escape.

"Not when you're so easily flustered." The older sister easily finished the conversation there, that annoying smirk plastered on her face taunting Ruby's very dignity.

About to throw herself into her locker and await the end of all things, both her and her sister's attentions are pulled to the opposite side of the locker room. A certain blond boy, in his ever present 'charm,' apparently decided to hit on another group of girls, and he is clearly 'enjoying' his consequence. A spear piercing his hoodie was probably the luckiest punishment, all things considered.

The soft slap of palm against forehead pulls Yang's attention back to her sister, only to hear her mutter, "Goddamnit Jaune. How did you even get into Beacon?"

"Someone you know?"

"In a way." The reaper walks over to 'Jaune', barely slow enough for the armored one to pull her sword-spear free from the concrete he is embedded in and walk away apologizing as she goes. He slides down the wall with nary a sound. Evidently hearing Ruby's approach, he looks up, only to groan in defeat at the sight of the little devil.

Reaching her arm out, Ruby says, "Jaune, did you even listen to what I had to say the last time you asked me what I know about dating?"

"...That you have no experience…?" The crumbled boy offers while praying to whatever gods he can think of off the top of his head that he's right. He grabs her hand to be helped up, yet again surprised by her strength.

"And that even I can tell you're doing it wrong." Seeing Jaune open his mouth, Ruby deadpans, "And no, your parents' advice isn't helping your cause."

Jaune droops his head in forfeit, "Yeah, you're right. I should just stop."

"Well you two seem awfully close." Ruby's torturer saunters over with yet another annoying smirk, "Actually, there's another change for you. Since when did you have friends?"

With an eye roll, emphasized by her tongue poking out in Yang's direction, Ruby returns her focus to Jaune. "Come on you big baby, let's go to those cliffs."

The blonde brawler let out a troubled sigh at the sight of watching the stranger who had become her sister leave the locker room consoling the socially awkward boy. "Change number four."


	4. Beastmaster

Dusting off her white combat skirt and straightening her bolero jacket, Weiss takes a moment to actually look at her surroundings. The Emerald Forest itself wasn't much to look at, considering every normal plant had green leaves anyways. Large stones and boulders littered the ground every few meters. The forest's overhead canopy and general repetitiveness gave the heiress next to no sense of direction.

The overwhelming sulfur and brimstone scent common for dissolving grimm bodies told her that she should vacate the area. Dead grimm only attract more grimm. Taking one last look at the decaying beowulf that decided to stand under her as she fell, Weiss picks a direction and begins her trek, hand resting on her sheathed rapier.

Mere minutes after she began her walk, the heiress finds herself looking up at an odd pair of scores in a particularly thick tree branch. Slightly above that is a break in the canopy, giving Weiss the impression that someone fell through it, and whatever their weapon was left those marks in the branch. That means that there should be a set of footprints nearby where they landed. She could, potentially, stalk and observe this student and their capabilities before deciding to become their partner. With that new goal in mind, Weiss began searching the area for tracks.

A few feet roughly north of that tree, _fourteen_ pairs of prints lay imbedded in the mud; a pair of boots and the rest canine in shape. Weiss didn't even hesitate, following the direction the trail points. Minutes pass before the footprints fade entirely, pointing through some bushes into the clearing beyond.

The explosive crack characteristic of a large firearm blares forth from the clearing beyond the bushes, nearly throwing Weiss off balance. Recuperating from her little jump-scare, the heiress' brows furrow, and with final determination she peeks from behind the bush. Clad in crimson, a cloaked, hooded figure draws back a large scythe. Under the reaper's foot is a small, young grimm with bear-like qualities. Without even bone plates to its name, the ursa cub futilely claws - or more appropriately, paws - at the reaper's leg. With a seemingly practiced antipathy, the figure swings down, relieving the weight of its head from the cub's shoulders. The whining of the cub moments before death clearly attracted the rest of the herd, as five more ursi stalk out of the forest.

 _He has to have noticed, right? Then why hasn't he moved from the corpse of the ursa cub?_ Weiss thinks, more worried for the figure's well being than trying to determine the figure's sex. The ursas get a little too close for Weiss' liking, and throwing caution to the wind she bursts from the bushes to stab a bear through its eye, a satisfying clunk sounding out from Myrtenaster. Withdrawing and stepping back a few paces, the heiress watches as the ursa corpse explodes in a brilliant red Dust flame, taking out another two on either side. Weiss witnesses a fourth fall to a boulder forming in the air before dropping onto the largest ursa present.

That just leaves the fifth. In rage at the loss of its brethren in quick succession, it blindly begins swinging at the red figure. A fraction of a second before the claws would have normally connected with it, the reaper evaporates, leaving behind a few waning rose petals. Steel replaces grimm flesh as a definitely female form drops from the sky and skewers the ursa through the chest.

Weiss felt her eye twitch when the figure pulled back her hood to reveal a young face, black and red hair, and silver eyes, before she said, "hello! My name's Ruby!"

* * *

"RUBY!" A certain blonde brawler called at the top of her lungs into the forest. Not that it mattered. Her sister made it obvious that she doesn't need - no, _want_ her company. She'd much rather have the company of her wolves, her inability to contact Yang showed her all she needed to know.

Now that she was in the forest though, she could use this time to let out all that pent up anger. A few Grimm nests were about to have a bad day. As much as she was mad at her sister, she would rather take her anger out on punching bags than the redhead.

Well, she _does_ have an aura…

Catching herself before she could entertain that idea too far, Yang shakes her head and continues walking. She knew her semblance evaporated whatever self control she may have normally, which was both a blessing and a curse. While not omnipresent, it wasn't exactly a switch either, and any anger would throw off any rhyme or reason to her actions. On one hand, this granted her a fierce determination and resilience on the battlefield, unrivalled by anyone other than the most ancient of Grimm. On the other, should she become angry at anyone she cared about, she could easily send them through a concrete wall. Luckily that hasn't been a problem yet.

The crackling of fire pulled her back to her surroundings, realizing she had accidentally let her semblance show its own visible effect. Yang's fire wasn't just symbolic. It was _very_ real, as demonstrated by the trail of embers at the brawler's feet, reaching back in the direction she had just walked from. Her semblance was just as passionate. Just as uncontrollable.

And it was time to let it go.

* * *

The reverberating crash of another explosion served to only increase her worry and curiosity. Either something was being beaten to a pulp, or someone was blowing up a _lot_ of grimm. Both were good and promising, but from a cat faunus' perspective, it was simply too much for the girl. The explosions became more rapid as she drew nearer, from periodically to several times every few seconds. It didn't help that the fires became more abundant the further she walked.

Blake was surprised to finally get the answer to what was going on in the form of a blonde woman in the bushes, standing in a forest full of dissolving grimm husks, filling the air with a strong wood ash scent. No _living_ Grimm remain in the newly created clearing. Blake decided to wait a bit before entering so as not to provoke the clearly agitated person. "I'm assuming everything is under control?"

Her question was answered with a rush of air as a fist came flying at her only to stop a few inches from her face. Red eyes dimmed until they were lilac as they gazed into amber. "Well, I guess they have to be now."

Trying not to flinch at the near hit had been hard, but trying not to laugh at the clear confusion on the brawler's face was even more challenging. However, Blake managed to maintain her stoic nature as she extended a hand. "Well considering I don't see anyone else around, I guess this makes us partners."

The fires in the vicinity - as well as in the Blonde's hair - died down in ferocity as the other girl grasped the outstretched hand to shake firmly. "Guess so. I'm Yang, nice to meet you…?"

"Blake."

"Nice to meet you Blake. Now then, where are we off to? Cause I was hunting Grimm, not the artifact thing." Yang states a little sheepishly as she runs a hand through the golden locks at the back of her head.

"The ruins to the south," came her simple reply.

"You don't talk much, do you?" The blonde brawler looked her in the eyes for a few seconds before continuing. "Yeah, reminds me of… never mind."

* * *

Think of the most uncomfortable situation you can. Now imagine it in silence, reaching your hand out for a handshake, as the woman across from you simply stares, her eye twitching. That was Ruby's world, as she slowly retracted her hand to run through her hair. She drops her scythe to the side, letting the muzzle sit against the dirt.

"Ummm… are you okay?" The reaper tries again for contact, but she was denied. Her wolves announce their approach to their mother with simple telepathic noises.

The first wolf breaks through the underbrush into the clearing Ruby was destroying Ursi in just a moment before, breaking the white haired girl's attempt to understand the sight before her. Fenrir, in his tactful brilliance, decides to growl. In his defence, that did break her out of her immobility. The girl must have seen her pup as a threat, because she wasted no time in lashing out with that rapier.

Ruby was having none of that, shifting her grip on Crescent Rose to allow her better use of the sniper. Pressing the trigger, the reaper traded that recoil for momentum, dragging the scythe blade through the air and coming into contact with the white haired girl's sword, sending it airborne. With a soft thud it lands on the ground nearby.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Both of the young women yell simultaneously. An explosion sounds in the background, but neither pay it any mind.

"I'm saving my kid's life, that's what. You attacked him!" Ruby yelled in response, a little faster to register the words the other said.

"He was rearing to attack me! You heard him!" Weiss returned, just as vehemently. They were supposed to be partners, and their relationship was already going south. This would be a fun next four years…

"Oh please, he growls at everything." Almost to prove her point, the sleek black wolf growled once again, "Fenrir, heel." Obeying orders, he walks up to his mother's leg and sits, refraining from continued growling.

"Hati, fetch." Ruby says, staring straight at the white haired girl's face. Another two wolves breach the forest's underbrush, startling the girl yet again. The pure white wolf, Hati, strolls over to the rapier, picking it up with her teeth, before dropping it off in her mother's hand.

"Now that you seem to have calmed down, mind telling me your name? If we're gonna be stuck together for four years, may as well make it peaceful." The girl nods, reaching out to retrieve the offered blade.

"I'm Weiss. Weiss Schnee. You said you're Ruby, correct?"

"Yup! Ruby Rose, that's me!" Whatever that earlier persona was has evaporated from the girl in crimson, replaced with a 'calmer,' more excitable person. The reaper punctuated her second introduction with a salute you would expect in the navy.

"...Riiight. Anyways, which way are the ruins?" The heiress switched topics, wanting this to be over as soon as possible.

"Oh, I don't know. I lost track of which way was which when I landed on that ursa den. Turns out, combat based around spinning isn't good for navigation."

While Weiss' hand met her face, her mind certainly wasn't done. She had so many questions. How does the younger girl control three near wild wolves? Not only that, but she looks so young, how did she even get into Beacon in the first place? What is with the wolves' names? They certainly aren't from any language she's ever heard, and as the heiress to the SDC, she would definitely know. Now wasn't a good time to think this over, they had a mission to complete. Hopefully the headmaster wasn't entirely truthful with his explanation of this initiation. Hopefully she can still get away from this girl. With a sigh, Weiss turned away from the enigma known as Ruby, looking instead for someway to navigate.

"Hati seems to know where to go." The crimson reaper spoke, walking into Weiss' field of view. The aforementioned white wolf silently began walking into the forest, raising yet another question in the heiress' mind.

* * *

The further Yang and her new partner in crime walked from the brawler's impact crater, the more the pouch at her hip buzzed. While Yang didn't mind it, apparently Blake could hear it, and she didn't like it. Retrieving the offending scroll from the pouch the buzzing originated from, she saw a picture of herself, with her aura meter below it. In the red.

"How the…" she muttered aloud. Sure, she may have let herself get hit a few times so she could rip grimm apart more efficiently, but certainly not _that_ much, right? Yang could almost feel Blake's judging gaze. _Yes, scrolls are transparent. You learned this yesterday._

"You really are reckless," her reclusive friend sighed, "I guess that should have been obvious. Come on, sooner we get that relic, the better. For your health."

"...Yeah," the brawler conceded.

Before the duo could continue in the direction they assumed was south, the ground rumbled, immediately followed by a deathstalker the size of a bullhead crashing through the forest. On the scorpion grimm's back stood a red haired girl in bronze armor, and hanging on to the stinger was a familiar awkward blond boy. The fight continued passed them almost comically, as the grimm tried scraping Jaune off its stinger.

"Umm, should we help?" Yang walked up to the trail left in the forest. It wasn't stopping at this rate. She turns to Blake, who simply shrugs and begins running down the channel, making her mind up for her.

* * *

The temple they were told about before being flung into the forest crept into view. Its age was apparent, most of the temple's walls were fallen, with stone paths leading throughout a larger unknown complex. Vines covered anything that was even slightly elevated. The pedestals in the central amphitheatre-like structure were relatively untouched by nature, with just a bit of moss growing here and there.

"See? I told you Hati knew!" Ruby says with exuberance, towing Weiss along with her. Somewhere along the way, the heiress doubted where they were going, and wanted to take a different path, which meant that Ruby had to make sure she kept following. The white haired girl simply mumbled and admitted defeat.

Ruby let go of Weiss' hand, deciding to flash over to the temple and look at the artifacts instead of wait for the heiress. The pedestals were aligned to be exactly symmetrical in a tight semicircle. Gems of emerald, amber, sapphire and jasper shone atop their stone fixtures, betraying their own energy. These were clearly elemental Dust. Where one type sat, its place was mirrored across the dividing line, and not a single crystal of the eight was missing.

"Dust? That can _not_ be safe." The heiress spoke, catching up as Ruby looked around. "Though, I suppose, neither is our job."

"Nope!" The reaper exclaimed turning to look at her partner. "Any preference? I like the look of the orange one."

"Ruby, that's Burn. The blue is Ice, that green one is Storm, and the brown crystal is Seismic. At least use their proper names." Weiss said with a sigh, and roll of the eyes.

"Oh, okay. But yeah… so is the ora- Burn, good to you?" She turned away from her partner to inspect the crystal. Something about the way it shone spoke to her.

"I think you just like shades of red," the heiress voiced, giving a half chuckle when the crimson reaper jumps back and flushes. Her hand reaches out and grabs the Burn crystal Ruby was staring into, "but no, I don't mind."

On the outside, the younger woman struggled for a moment to regain her composure from being caught in the appreciation of her apparent favorite color, and lightly smile at Weiss, but the story was different on the inside. Ruby was conflicted. On one hand, she really liked Weiss, which she is totally aware could be an understatement. But on the other, the heiress was exactly that, the heiress of the largest Dust producing company on Remnant. Isn't she supposed to be a spoiled brat or something? The high-and-mighty princess who descended from her castle into peasant-land?

 _Heh. I did always say I wanted to be the knight in shining armor, saving a princess_ , Ruby thought to herself, before mentally shaking to rid herself of those nostalgic thoughts.

Another thing to think about was that, without thinking, Weiss lashed out at Fenrir. While she was able to put on a facade about it, it wasn't really something she could just push to the side. Could she really trust the white haired beauty?

" _Mom. Something moved."_ Fenrir's voice cut through his mother's thoughts, drawing her attention away from the girl she was smiling at and towards the forest.

"Is something wrong?" Weiss questioned. All she knows is that Ruby was staring at her for a second or two, before her head snapped to the right. Following the girl's gaze brought her own to the black wolf. He stood from his perch, barking at the forest. But how would Ruby have known he would do that? He wasn't barking moments before. Fenrir stopped barking and ran into the trees, leaving silence in his wake.

"Something is coming. Weiss, draw your weapon, and get ready to jump. Three…" Not to be a hypocrite, Ruby did the same, drawing her scythe in one fluid motion. "Two…" She set her scythe, barrel first onto the ground, and one foot on the blade.

The white head of a King Taijitu broke through the underbrush, barreling towards the heiress. Ruby reacted and pushed herself away with a freshly emptied chamber with the hope that Weiss would be able to move in time. Thankfully, that was the case, though not in the way the reaper expected. Reaching into her aura reserves, the heiress crouched down and stuck that rapier of hers into the ground, springing a glyph into reality, angled away from the snake. The massive grimm bounced off of the glyph, redirected to narrowly miss the rest of the ruins.

Pulling the bolt to chamber a new shot, Ruby flips in mid air, planting her feet on a tree about twenty feet up. Before gravity could reclaim her momentum, the reaper squeezed the trigger, thrusting her momentum towards the moving snake. Her swing, one that would eviscerate a lesser foe, only nicked the Taijitu's hide. The unexpected transfer of force threw Ruby for a loop, knocking her off balance and crashing into the ground.

' _This won't be easy.'_

* * *

' _Ah, nothing quite like having running like hell when faced with a giant scorpion.'_ Yang thought, narrowly dodging another claw. Maybe punching it to grab its attention wasn't the best idea, but it was the best she had at the time. Granted, she did distract the Deathstalker from Jaune and his partner, but the brawler wasn't sure this situation was any more desirable. In fact… the situation got worse. Oops.

Figuring she could find better openings, and notice it wasn't fast enough that talking would be a distraction, Yang did as Yang does and looked to her new ally. "So, what's your name? I'm Yang."

Not missing a beat, the renowned fighter sidestepped the incoming stinger so she could try and damage the tail before it drew back. "Pyrrha." Letting out a grunt of frustration that her sword only clinked off the beast's exoskeleton, the redhead glanced at Yang to show her uncertainty. "Were you sure punching it would be wise? Nothing of mine can cut it."

"Nope!" Out of the corner of her eye, the brawler caught a glimpse of Blake jumping onto the scorpion's back and take her own chance at cutting up its tail, only to cause it to thrash about and send Blake flying. Meanwhile, Jaune yelled a mighty roar and ran at the oversized arachnid, shield raised and sword ready to swing. The Grimm scorpion didn't even notice the gnat when he got sent flying back from a single swipe of an oversized pincer.

Seeing the, admittedly amusing, sight of the other Blond go flying, Yang sighed and went to rethink their options. ' _I mean… he tried.'_ Yang thought. They really didn't have many options. Jaune has so far proven to be useless, Pyrrha is an amazing fighter but can't hit very hard, and Blake could get where ever she wanted, but like Pyrrha, she simply isn't able to break its bone or tear its hide.

"Well, I'm out of ideas! Any of you got something?!"

"Other than its mouth and eyes, we can't hurt it. And before you ask, Yang's aura is low." Blake spoke up finally, throwing in her two cents.

Turning to the still standing Blonde, Pyrrha looked torn between scolding and just giving up. Clearly she went for the former when she opened her mouth. "Then why did you join?" The amazonian exclaimed, more in confusion than anger, short lived as it was before she was punted through the nearest tree by their adversary.

The raven haired ninja spoke up then while getting to a vantage point in a nearby tree. "Umm, that may have been my decision." Blake muttered.

"We could just run and hope to find another cliff to throw it down? It couldn't be that hard to trick it into running off a cliff!" Jaune said, hiding behind his shield.

"Eh, it's the best we've got, let's do it! Hey ugly!" Yang yelled, throwing a stone at the deathstalker. "Follow me!" She then began running in as much of the opposite direction of the scorpion as possible. It worked, as the sound of trees crashing to the ground indicated it was pushing them aside to continue pursuit.

In case it wasn't already apparent, there were _way_ better ways this could have happened.

* * *

Shortly after the black Taijitu head broke through the forest to fight Ruby and Weiss, the white head rushed out, chasing after a ball of green and pink. When the second pair of hunters in training recovered from their small flight, they immediately returned to the fray. The green blur Ruby saw turned out to be a ninja, and the pink was some mix between Yang's fighting style and her own. Hit hard and with a big weapon. Since they were currently fighting a two headed snake, Ruby decided not to ask their names, instead electing to call them Ninja-guy and Lady Thor. Somewhere along the way, the four of them managed to drag it away from the temple, into a thicker forest.

Ruby had a plan. Since her and Weiss only had to deal with one head at the moment, if they could somehow hold the head still, she could jump onto the grimm's back, hook it, and fire repeatedly with the scythe to break through its thick scales. Only problem, how could they hold it still long enough? She has no idea what Hati and Fenrir's semblances could be, and Sköll's is too destructive. It could be useful to help sever the snake's head, but not to hold it down. As far as they know, all his semblance does is form and drop large, flaming boulders.

"Hey, Weiss! Do you think you could hold it still with your glyphs?" Ruby shouted, grabbing the attention of her partner.

"Yes, but that would drain my aura too quickly!"

"No, I meant just the head, so I could stand on its back and chop at it!"

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It would thrash around and drain my aura!"

That's plan A busted. Plan B, become lumberjacks. "Okay, new plan. Help me cut down some trees. If we do it right, we might be able to trap it!" The reaper flashed over to a tree relatively close to the King Taijitu. Hooking her scythe around the trunk, she pulled the trigger to slice through a meter of wood in one fell swoop, and at a steep enough angle so that the tree would fall in the direction she wanted.

Weiss did much the same, wrapping a ton of smaller glyphs around another large tree, then willing them to occupy the same space at the center of the trunk. Since her glyphs are pseudo-physical objects, they sliced straight through the wood. Both trees fell at about the same time, and settled on the grimm.

Plan B slowed it down a very noticeable amount, but it still wasn't enough.

Dodging a bite, Ruby yelled, "again!" They went through the same motions, but on the opposite side of the snake. This time, it stopped completely.

"Yes! Sköll! Drop it!" The yellow-gray wolf obliged, howling as loud as he could. The boulder pierced about halfway down before it crumbled, having been made in too much of a hurry. Noting how the boulder pierced instead, Ruby dashed over and flicked Crescent Rose out to resemble a war scythe, instead of its customary garden scythe shape. With both hands, she spun it about a bit before stabbing into the wound. With one hand now free, Ruby reaches for her unfinished handcannon. After the slight click of the safety, she aims it into the wound and fired several bullets. At the same time, she mentally willed Fenrir and Hatï to help her drag her scythe through the grimm.

Weiss decided to help, using her rapier's dust containers and many complex twirls and glyphs to fire elemental blasts at the head, just in case it survives, it will be weaker. That turned out to be unnecessary. When Ruby and her children finished ripping the neck apart, that head immediately started dissolving.

When the Reaper and the heiress turned around to help Ninja-guy and Lady Thor, they caught the tail end of one amazing sight. Ninja-guy's dual submachine guns had whittled away a small opening in the snake's skull, allowing Lady Thor to fire her grenade-hammer point blank into the opening. A wave of grimm ichor blew forth, coating everything in a five foot radius in the stuff. It quickly dissipated, however, leaving everything just as clean as before.

"Well that was exciting," Ninja-guy monotoned, "thanks for your help. My name is Ren."

"And I'm Nora!" Lady Thor exclaimed, almost exactly copying Ruby's earlier naval salute, but with one leg raised.

"I'm Ruby, this is Weiss," the Reaper pointed out, "the Temple is in that direction. We already got an artifact, so we'll be heading back to Beacon."

"I wish you luck on your return," Weiss finished, punctuated with a curtsy. With that simple introduction and farewell, the four parted ways.

* * *

"I've got it! There, Yang, a vine is hanging down from that tree, over a chasm!"

"Good eye, Jauney boy!" Yang yelled back. They, or rather, _she_ had been running for her life for the past ten or twenty minutes, and she was ready to be rid of the overgrown arachnid. She was, however, impressed by Jaune's stamina so far. Especially since he didn't seem like Huntsman material. Not that he could outrun them, but he was keeping up with the pace of the deathstalker, which was all the brawler wanted to outrun, pacing herself accordingly.

With a goal in mind, she plants her right foot down to take a hard left, kicking up dust. The chasm now fast approaching, the brawler jumps, using her Ember Celica to gain extra momentum. Not expecting the vine to be in her face as fast as it was, she panicked, grabbing it with one hand. The other hand she kept pointing back, firing repeatedly. The branch the vine was wrapped around shook with because of Yang's weight, sending jolts down the glorified leaf.

The blonde's feet touched down upon the ground on the other side of the chasm, on which she simply collapsed, exhausted. Yang laid there, just focusing on breathing. When her other senses came back to her, she noticed she was still holding something. Raising her hand, the brawler saw the vine she swung on still in her hand. Following the line, she could see that the branch snapped, and followed her across.

With a jolt, and fairly loud yelp, Yang threw the vine towards the cliff edge, where weight took over and dragged it in.

She sat there, staring at the cliff, pondering every possible outcome. She could have died. Hell, she probably should have died. The tree certainly tried to make it happen. Her thoughts were interrupted as Blake came into sight, chest heaving, and offering a hand down to help her up.

"How did you get across?" Yang asked, taking the offered hand.

Blake helped her up, before saying, "I used the ribbon on my kusarigama. I had to walk a bit to the north to find a spot that it could reach, though. Pyrrha and Jaune are running around, they'll be here in a bit. They decided since your aura shattered when you hit the ground, they were going to help you get back… Well, mostly Pyrrha."

"M-My aura shattered?" the brawler asked. Her face was a cross between slightly frightened and generally confused. "I don't remember that."

"Yeah, yellow light, danced around your body. I checked my scroll, you definitely have no aura left."

"Oops. Well, at least I'm getting the ladies to help me." Yang said with a smirk. Her partner groaned and pushed her back, which only caused the brawler to chuckle.

* * *

 **AN**

 **NOBODY PANIC, BUT I MAY HAVE CAUGHT AN INCONSISTENCY. IT'S FIXED NOW THOUGH.**

 **Something I have already alluded to, but wouldn't be brought up again until chapter 15, clashed really badly with a fundamental reason that this story can exist. But now they work, and don't clash too badly any more.**

 **Anyway, no Snot. "Trap" is not the wolfy equivalent of a semblance.**

 **Also, hi. I'm back. Sup. A month overdue. Oops. I blame school.**

 **Archer was here… repeatedly, and glaring at points. Pay no mind to the glaring in general direction, just don't make noise, might stay staring that one way.**

 **Blacsparrow: Blac… didn't do much this chapter, sentence structure and a few ideas tossed around. Hope you all enjoy!**


	5. Pack's Guide

When Ruby and Weiss arrived at the school, a professor stood with his arms crossed, waiting by the large door to Beacon proper. He was of a stout build, with big, burly muscles that would put Tai's to shame, and an intimidatingly tall physique. The man had short, naturally red hair, and no facial hair to speak of.

He smiled as the duo approached, and spoke with a soft, Vacuan accent, "hello, I am Professor Raedwulf. I handle the weight training here at Beacon. I know who you two are, I read the roster. Dust element?"

"Uhhh, what?" The young girl managed to say, staring up at his visage, clearly taken aback by just how strange it was for such an intimidating face to speak so normally. Ruby expected to be yelled at and told to give him 'twenty.'

"The Dust crystal, Ruby. We picked up Burn." Weiss interjected, pulling the crystal out of the pocket in her jacket, and handing it over to the professor.

"Oh, that."

Professor Raedwulf took it with an almost disbelieving stare that only stuck a moment. "Well, alright. Normally we have a full team decided by now, but not this time, I suppose. Enter the auditorium and wait. First years sit in the back left quarter." He pointed at a pair of double doors, with a sign next to each entrance saying 'Auditorium: First and Third' or 'Auditorium: Second and Fourth.'

"Thank you." The heiress took a curtsy before moving on ahead, not caring if Ruby stayed to stare. The reaper didn't though, really wanting to move away from that man's presence.

"Did you see that?" Ruby whispered to her partner as they entered the amphitheatre, not wanting Raedwulf to hear her. "He was huge! I have never seen that much muscle on one person!"

"Where are you going with this, Ruby." The heiress asked in exasperation. The duo passed the dividing tape between Third and First years. Now they just needed a seat.

"Where else? He's trained his body to be his weapon! He doesn't need a fancy transforming sword-shotgun, though that would be awesome… oh! What about…" the Reaper continued her weapons escapade without hesitation, and spoke animatedly. Over time, the auditorium filled, and despite her very one sided conversation, Ruby did notice a marked absence of a certain two heads of yellow hair. Yang and Jaune were nowhere to be seen.

"And… there could be a…" her tirade trailed off, bringing Weiss back to reality.

"Something wrong, Ruby?" the heiress turned around in her seat, and took advantage of her new position to look at her partner's slightly worried visage.

"Hmm? Oh… Well, it's probably nothing, but I don't see my sister, or Jaune," Ruby said, and cast another look around the room. "When does the assembly start, again?"

"In about three hours, or whenever the last initiate returns; whichever is sooner. That's what the Headmaster said on the cliffs."

"Why so late? It doesn't take that long to grab the relic. We got back at ten, didn't we? And it started at eight in the morning…" Ruby let her sentence trail off again, now more confused than worried. Despite her newfound confusion, she continued to rake her eyes through the crowd.

"I don't think he said why. Maybe there are more waves of students to run through initiation?" Weiss offered, after a few seconds of thought.

"Either way, I'm going to go stand by that professor who welcomed us. Maybe he knows if Yang has returned." The Reaper stood with an air of finality to that discussion, and sent a mental command to her Wolves to begin searching the forests, just in case. Even though they had only been talking—or in Weiss' case, listening—for thirty minutes, the amount of students in the area has grown exponentially. Ruby was forced to actually wade through the waves of hunters in training, and in one case, use her semblance to catapult herself over a group of older students. As she remembered, at a table closest to the east entrance to the hall, a large line of students had strung up. Now stood with Professor Raedwulf was another teacher. A portly, round man, with a large moustache bushy eyebrows.

"Excuse me," the crimson caped huntress began when she finally reached the table, "have you seen my sister yet, Professors?"

The voice to his left caused the largest of the two to look up from a packet of papers. His eyes widened in slight surprise, before he replied, "correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not remember seeing another Rose on the roster I was given."

"Oh, haha, yeah. That's because her name is Yang Xiao Long."

"Oh! The blondie! No, I have not seen her since this morning. She carries herself with a sense of strength I do not see often. Her and that Nora character…" the professor shook his head before returning to the next student in line. "You're welcome to hang about here, though, for when she shows up."

"Thank you."

* * *

The forests felt unending, and with good reason. The wildwood looked as if it stretched into the infinite unbound.

At least, that's how it felt to poor Yang. Her entourage wouldn't let her do anything while her aura is down, and it sucked.

Meanwhile, Blake wasn't particularly happy, either. In the span of a few seconds and one misjudgement, she went from having connections to one team, to two. When they found the ruins where the Dust were, only one Burn and one Wind crystals remained. She could only guess that matching crystals were what decided teams. Pyrrha and Nora found a way to keep that positive, but the catgirl certainly couldn't.

To add to her uneasiness, a new stench appeared on the winds. A very faint, vaguely canine smell that gave Blake a sense of distance, but not direction. The instinctual feeling of dog-based dread made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and her ears to tense, in a feeble attempt to locate it.

The scent wafted in place, then moved forward, and then wafted some more. Whatever it was, was moving ever closer, before it stopped, and moved in another nondescript direction. At long last, it caught up with the group's measly pace, finally reaching the edge of Blake's faunus hearing, with scuffles in the underbrush that betrayed the offending canine's location. Behind her.

Blake spun on her heel and drew her Gambol Shroud in one fluid motion, where she stopped moving, to squint at the forest surrounding. The rest of the party also stopped.

"You alright Blake?" Yang asked, but the cat in disguise quickly shushed her.

The movement must have become audible for human ears too, as soon after, everyone in the group drew their weapons. It sped up, and grew ever nearer with an unprecedented resolve.

A blob of black fur burst from the false darkness with claws outstretched and mouth wide open, clearly gunning for the reckless blonde. Blake swung at it, and Pyrrha must have fired a round, judging from the gunshot, but while both attacks connected, neither did any damage.

A… black wolf… popped out if its blurred movement, landed on top of Yang, and began… playing.

It licked and lapped at every inch of the brawler's face, which evidently tickled. She squirmed beneath the weight of her attacker, and guffawed seemingly unending.

"Ah! Hahah! F-Fen-rir st-o-o-op! Ahahahaha!"

The scene had everyone in the surrounding area slackjawed. Pyrrha, Blake, and Jaune couldn't comprehend the first thing about the scene presented to them. One moment they feared for their friends life, and the next they were staring at that same friend under tickle by that same attacker.

Yet despite their confusion, the duo on the floor continued. The positive vibes coming from the brawler and the dog probably pushed every creature of Grimm in the opposite direction.

When the wolf stopped, it looked around at the surrounding party, clearly driven by their smells. When it registered in its doggy mind what it had done in the presence of witnesses, it appeared ashamed.

"Yeah. Hi Fenrir. I see that you're doing good." Yang reached her hand out to pat the wolf on the head, only met with minimal resistance. "Is Ruby nearby?" The dog escaped its prison of pets and started to merely stroll off in a seemingly random direction, probably in the direction of this Ruby.

"Eh, what just happened?" Jaune bursted out, his shield collapsed and set on his belt. Yang turned on her heel to see three very confused friends.

"Oh. Sorry, that's my sister's wolf. She probably sent him to look for me," the brawler was clearly set to continue her explanation, but she was cut off mid sentence.

"That dog jumped at you with its claws outstretched. How are you not hurt?" Blake blurted out her own interruption, the confusion breaking through her own quiet facade.

"Huh… well I'll be damned, they do have their own semblances. I don't know what it was. Let's go ask Ruby."

The wolf brought the quartet to the base of Beacon's steep hill, which they spent the last thirty minutes walking up. Somewhere along the way the ebony canine decided to disappear, as far as Blake could tell, back into the woods. None of the group were able to understand how it—he, according to Yang—knew the way to Beacon, when they were evidently walking in the wrong direction originally. Beacon's gothic architecture finally stood over the crest of the incline, both intimidating and welcoming in its design, which created a longing to be inside its doors once again.

A flash of rose petals filled the vision of four unsuspecting mid-teens, accompanied by a shrill yell of, "YANG!" A red caped hug crusader enveloped the blond in question in a tight squeeze, that the ostensibly older female was quick to return, as if by instinct. To all who witnessed the incident, it appeared as if the red figure were clinging on tightly and just beginning to relax.

Internally was a different matter for the reaper however. Thanks to Fenrir, she wasn't that worried for her sister, but until now she was a ball of stressed nerves. Yang could hear the deep exhale and feel the tight hug release as Ruby eased up enough to look at her sister. "Took you long enough, ya lazy ass."

"Awww, were you worried?" Yang questioned facetiously, which only got a quick eye roll, before the much shorter girl backed off, and looked towards the observers.

"So what kept you so long? I've been up here with my partner for at least two... three hours now." She took a measured glance at each of the three people Fenrir had warned were with her big sis. Jaune, who she obviously knew, looked a bit tired and worn, but not too badly scratched. The two girls, who had stood their mildly awkwardly before she asked her question, were intriguing in their own rights.

The bronze plated woman practically towered over Ruby's own height, likely six foot even if she wasn't wearing heels. Her stance was noticeably lenient and relaxed, with a swayed preference to her right. The shield and sword-spear sheathed on her back caught the Reaper's attention, but she resolved to ask later about it.

That left the one in black. Fenrir did mention something about 'the smell of cat,' which originally made the cloaked girl think that someone was a cat person, which wouldn't have been horrible… but then she noticed the girl's bow, adorned on the top of her head. It wiggled, almost imperceptibly, but due to the fact she was looking, it was quite clear. This news meant to Ruby that her wolves most certainly were not going to be allowed in the dorm buildings. How sad.

"Yang here shattered her aura."

"Jaune shut the fuck up." Jaune started speaking first, but the brawler really, really tried to cut him off. Ruby spun on her heel and delivered a weak punch to Yang's shoulder.

"YANG YOU DUMBASS!" Her shriek certainly wasn't anywhere near as weak as that punch. Many heads throughout the hallway, including those of a few professors turned to the source of the wail.

"Oh like it really matters to you. Or have you forgotten what you didn't do the last year and a half?!" Yang retaliated. The bystanders returned to their business, wanting nothing to do with another damn hunter feud. Jaune and Pyrrha decided now was a good time to whistle and walk away. Blake would have followed if not for the fact her partner was being chewed out. In the back of her mind, she was able to make the loose connection between this event and Yang's tantrum in the forest. The catgirl watched for longer than she let on.

Ruby, for her part, looked affronted, and a bit downtrodden all of a sudden. That bit of information immediately made the Reaper regretful, that it was her fault that her sister was in this state, most likely because of herself. With head cast suddenly to the ground, the mother of three stepped forward and wrapped Yang in a much gentler hug.

"I'm upset because I wanted to fix things… if you had… I wouldn't have gotten the chance." The Reaper muttered that into the brawler's shoulder, quiet enough that only the hug-victim and a certain catgirl could hear it—not that she would ever let anyone know that.

However, said bow-wearing girl did feel the need to mention all the many eyes staring at the two girls hugging, and maybe near tears, in the middle of the hall. Hoping to relieve attention from her partner, and in tandem, herself, Blake spoke up. "Ummm, could we maybe take this to the auditorium, and some seats. People are watching."

Ruby's cheeks lit up in embarrassment as she extricated herself from her sister and led the group back to Weiss, and some open seats. Professor Raedwulf apparently was taking a peek inside the auditorium, so he caught Yang and Blake before they walked in and didn't get assigned. After short greetings between Weiss and the bumblebee-colored duo came to an end, the auditorium speakers boomed. Headmaster Ozpin tapped the mic.

"Welcome, and some of you, welcome back to Beacon Academy. As many of you know, I am the headmaster of this school. I have a few things to say before the rest of this assembly can begin.

"So that there are no surprises, I must remind you that Beacon is more than just a hunter training school. As of last year, we have begun pulling in other trades and professors to teach them. When you have so much space, why waste it all on a diminishing Hunter population? There were only forty new applicants to our program at the beginning of last year, and only thirty-two this year.

"As I said, this is a reminder, and news flash for the freshmen, that this year will be different. The schedule has been altered to accommodate this, which is reflected in the updating calendar on your scrolls. If you have further questions, Professor Goodwitch and I will be hanging by the doors after the assembly, to hopefully provide answers." The headmaster stopped, and scanned the audience. "Now that that's out of the way, shall we begin?"

The headmaster and Professor Goodwitch began calling out names, passing back and forth the list. The names were a blur to the bored sisters who, only in passing, took note of and clapped for every named team. As Ruby raked her eyes along the crowd, she noticed that Ozpin told the truth. Many of the attendees to the ceremony were not Hunters at all! Not only did they not have the build for it, but many had civilian clothes. Sure, Ozpin noted as much in his speech, but it took seeing them gathered in a cluster near the middle of the auditorium to truly understand.

On the other hand, the sister's partners took the assembly quite differently. Weiss looked at each team with a deliberate scrutiny, noting each and every year-mate's stance; the way they held themselves and each twitch. To an outside observer, the heiress looked absolutely raptured by this opportunity to observe the 'competition.'

Blake had found a similar way of keeping busy, her attention divided between the assembly and the red caped girl who had been—more or less—introduced as the reckless blonde's sister. She carried the scent of dog, to be sure, but it wasn't quite the same as the black wolf. Two other, similar scents winded towards the catgirl.

Before she could continue, her name was called, which broke her from the spell she was caught in, and she realized with a light blush that she was essentially smelling up the young girl. The catgirl reeled in her wherewithal and looked at the television over the stage. She realized that not only were she and Yang called, but Ruby and Weiss as well, with their first initials spelling out what resembled a child's attempt in writing the word, "ruby," but with a W for Weiss's name.

The newly formed team walked up to the stage.

"Our last team, dubbed RWBY. Welcome to Beacon."

* * *

 **AN: This Chapter I Learned: cats have better senses of hearing, sight, and smell than domestic dogs. Just another reason why I'm a cat person.**

 **Which is awkward, considering the concept of this story…**

 **Also, my headcanons came out of the woodworks in that speech.**

 **Blac- Nothing awkward about it at all. Cat's are awesome and the story already had a cat girl.**

 **Archer- _Resumes glaring_**


	6. Mistaken Hunt

Ruby woke to a room filled with only the sound of a light drizzle falling against the glass between Weiss's bed and Blake's. The sky was still dark outside, and the curtains were drawn back from the night before. After a large, Hunters-only dinner banquet, the teams were released to their dorms. Every team was given a new room number and key, as the freshmen had to take the rooms the now sophomores had, and so on. Team RWBY was already exceptionally tired and worn out from initiation, and with a large amount of food that needed digesting in their stomachs, the team agreed to unpack in the morning, leaving their luggage strewn about the room for now, only touched last night to retrieve pajamas.

Ruby shivered, even under the blanket she wrapped herself in last night. She missed being able to cuddle with her children, a luxury she got all too used to at Qrow's. She made the executive decision that the wolves will stay outside of the dorms, out of courtesy for their resident cat faunus. Which reminded Ruby, that was gonna a fun discussion, to explain how she knew. Not today.

Sunlight slowly broke the horizon, filtered through the grey rain clouds. The little light that did enter the room drew Yang from her slumber. The blonde looked around the room in slight confusion, before her memories clicked into place. Her eyes eventually locked with Ruby's.

"Heya Rubes. How long you been up?" Yang's voice sounded drowsy. She mumbled beneath her breath something about, "coffee."

"I dunno, ten minutes maybe." Yang made a noncommittal grunt of acceptance, before she glanced at the two sleepy-head teammates in their beds between the sisters.

"I'm going to go get some coffee… want any Rubes?"

"Sure, since Qrow got me addicted to that filth. I take mine with cream and five of those little sugar cubes." The blonde snorted with laughter, before she jumped off her bunk, and left without bothering to get dressed in more than her tank top and shorts. Her thump on the ground rustled Weiss and Blake from their slumber, both twisted in their beds to watch the blonde leave the room. Shortly thereafter, the catgirl pulled her comforter over her head. The blankets rustled around, before Blake popped her face out, glaring at the world from her perfect little blanket-cave. The young leader chuckled a bit at the sight.

"What," Blake demanded more than asked with an unamused tone.

"Nothing." Yes, she wanted to protect Blake's secret, but knowing the truth made the catgirl's actions frighteningly amusing. Weiss thoroughly ignored this interaction, with a hairbrush already in hand on her way towards the room's single bathroom.

With a slight glare towards the young leader, Blake snuggled back into her blanket. Ruby—who had the foresight to shower the night previous—jumped down to gather her clothes for the day, and brush her hair.

Shortly after Weiss emerged from the bathroom—dressed in the same dress-and-jacket pair she wore to initiation—Yang also returned, two mugs of coffee in her hands, one nearly half empty already.

"Ruby, take your… poison," the blonde said, only half-jokingly. The concoction quickly filled the room with its sickeningly sweet smell—a smell that only Ruby could enjoy. The nearly full mug disappeared in a flash of rose petals and whispered thanks as the girl returned to her corner of the room. The older sister threw back the remaining black tar from her own cup, which let Yang's reinvigorated gaze search the room, with its vacant walls and plain beds.

"Time to unpack, I guess." Yang commented, if only to break the silence. Blake and Weiss made their respective sounds of agreement, while Ruby simply stood from her bed beside her suitcase, left there by Beacon's staff. She didn't bring much, if only by virtue of not needing much. Clothes, ammunition, maintenance tools for Crescent Rose, a mostly flat pouch that carried her '...female necessities,' as her Uncle called it, pause in speech and all. She unpacked and had everything where she needed it within five minutes, tops. The coffee had inexplicably disappeared during her unpacking.

Her sister, partner, and teammate were still busied with their own unpacking, and moved furniture around so that it could all fit. Thankful for the opportunity, and with confidence they wouldn't notice until her return, Ruby slipped out the room. She had wolves to go hunting with!

Just outside the door to the First Year Dormitories sat all three of her children, excitement on their snouts already staring at where they knew Ruby's face would be. Even Fenrir, who despite his grumpiness throughout a normal day, looked relieved to see her, albeit the mental connection related his slight distraught by the thought they couldn't enter her room.

"Aw, come on Fenrir. You know Blake would flip out. I'm just looking out for her," Ruby said, a bit of downplay towards her darkest pup snuck in with her motherly tone. She crouched down and scritched each wolf behind the ears, then stood to lead them into the forest.

 _'Just because I know that doesn't mean I like it.'_ Each pup stood and followed their mother as she began her stride.

 _'You just like being momma's bedwarmer,'_ Sköll's 'voice' flitted across the mind sphere that was the group's mental connection, shortly followed by a growl. Ruby simply rolled her eyes, and with one deft move expanded her scythe.

"You're all so cute. So, how does a hunt sound this fine morning?" All three wolves responded with both audible and mental cries of agreement, ready to stretch their legs in the morning fog. All four darted into the forest again. Ruby neglected to use her semblance so that her kids could lead her toward a good hunt. Fenrir picked up a scent first and darted off northeast, which pulled the rest of the pack with him. A scant few moments of dashing through the trees was shortly followed by minutes of stalking. The pack had snuck up on an elk. Not a challenge for the young Huntress, who was used to fighting off creatures as strong as Ursai on her own. But this wasn't for her. This was for her children, another of Qrow's training ideas.

The three wolves snuck through the bushes ever carefully, their mother crouched on a thick branch overhead. Sköll knew he couldn't use his semblance if he wanted to eat anything. His "boulder" was more of a flaming dirt pile. It broke apart on impact, contaminating whatever meat it touched. As such, he snuck forward with his brother and sister, whose semblances were as of yet unknown.

As they were about to pounce on their unsuspecting prey, Hati misstepped. The crack of a snapped twig alerted the oversized mammal, and the white wolf's own surprise made her slip in the mud. The elk jumped onto its back legs in an attempt to turn and run, which narrowly avoided its death. What would have been a gash across its throat was now a cut hamstring and tumbling Sköll. Fenrir jumped out of his bush in front of the cornered animal, growled with a glare into the scared animal's eyes, and jumped in mimicry of his brother.

The black wolf found purchase, his canines piercing into the elk's throat. As hard as he could, Fenrir ripped that chunk of meat out, which pulled the near-dead mammal crashing to the ground. The three wolves backed up, as Ruby fell to the ground in the creature's sight.

* * *

"Does your sister always leave without telling anyone?" Weiss asked, very annoyed about pretty much everything. The three of the remaining team members finished their unpacking, which brought about a rather obvious problem. Aside from Ruby's practically untouched quarter of the dorm, nothing fit. Weiss—with the help of Yang—pushed her and Blake's beds together in an attempt to fit two dressers, one for each half of Team RWBY. Now, both dressers were jammed in diagonally, with clearly no space to straighten out and be flush against the back wall. Four study desks laid two-by-two against the door-wall with nary functional space. And that was just the furniture.

All in all, it was a mess. One that had no easy answer, by way of Weiss's adamant refusal to touch Ruby's stuff—or lack thereof—and bunk-beds required a "three-to-one vote" for the heiress to even reluctantly allow.

"You're the one who keeps making up bullshit. Ruby probably doesn't care." Yang yelled back, frustrated of her own right at her sister's habit of disappearing.

"Yang. Before _anything_ , you have Ruby's scroll number. Text her, and tell her to come back. Simple as that." Blake spoke in an attempt to stop the fight she knew was already brewing. Those two were going to be a pain in the ass. She could tell.

"Oh, right. Durh." Yang dove for her scroll on her nightstand on the other side of her bed, crammed as it was. The scroll emitted a faux-clicking sound as the blonde typed, and with a whoosh her simple message sent.

 _Vvvvbbt_.

Not even a second later Ruby's scroll lit up and vibrated across the room on the leader's bed.

"Goddamnit Ruby." Three facepalms followed Yang's exasperated sigh.

"Luckily it's raining, even if only a little. We can find footprints or something in the mud. And yes, Weiss, you're coming. You were the one who had the issue to begin with." Blake led them out of the dormroom and building itself shortly after. She was indeed correct, a pair of distinctly Ruby-boot-shaped tracks and multiple canine tracks led down into the forest for them to follow. Along the way, Blake caught wind of something following the trio, but to keep her secret, she deigned not to bring attention to it. Safer if Yang or Weiss took notice first.

Around a particularly thick tree, their red leader finally came into view, scythe held high and her back facing toward them. With a loud bark, her scythe discharged a burn round, and a downward swing started. The strike swung true, and startled all three members of team RWBY when a red, glistening trail of blood splurted forth, following the scythe blade back into the air.

"Oh god, Ruby!" Yang cried in surprise, her hand over her mouth. Her 'innocent' little sister started at the sound. Instinct took over. The Red Reaper practically teleported a few feet to the left in a flurry of petals, her scythe primed to strike as soon as she assessed the situation. Her move revealed the elk, its head freshly hewn.

"Oh, hi guys!" She flicked her scythe clean, sending drops of blood onto another tree. After fishing a granola bar out of her pocket and taking a bite of it a mental command broke its way across the connection with her children, before the Wolves began eating their breakfast. Ruby looked a little bit harder at her team, this time noticing the looks on their faces. "What? They're just eating. Freaked out by a little blood?"

"That is more than _'just a little blood!'_ You've damn near drenched the ground in it!" Weiss screeched, her own disgust rolling off into the sentence.

"That? Nah, that's nothing. You should see the amount that gushes out after killing some of the bigger game back on Patch." Ruby cracked an awkward smile, now rubbing her neck. Seeing her teammate's expressions darken, she panics. "Hey! At least I put my hunts out of their misery! Wild wolves would eat their meat as soon as they had it still. They don't care if it's dead or not."

"You're also not a wolf, Ruby." Blake said in a reminding, stern tone.

"I-I mean… no…? I'm not." Ruby's expression turned confused for a moment, and her head tilted to the side to stare at Blake in askance, "what's your point?"

Weiss steps forward, irritation written plain on her face. "Her point is you aren't some animal so you shouldn't behave like one."

That was hardly fair in Ruby's own opinion. She wasn't on the ground with her wolves gorging herself on raw meat, all she had done was end the poor animal's suffering. Something her children wouldn't have bothered to do themselves. If anything she was being decidedly humane and having her act of decency turned on her like she was doing something terrible is something the young huntress found frustrating in the extreme.

"- talking about." She mumbled darkly her gaze focused on the ground to avoid glaring at her team. She hadn't meant to say it aloud but still, someone caught it.

"What was that?" Came the stiff response from Weiss as her irritation shows clearly on her face.

"I said you two have no idea what you're talking about!" Ruby repeated at a shout, lifting her head to glare at the white and black pair in challenge. "Weiss, is it acting like an animal to save a suffering creature from it's pain in a quick merciful way? Sure it's a little messy but that's what happens when a wolf catches it's prey. It was always going to be messy but at least now the elk isn't suffering!"

"And you!" She continues turning from her stunned and hopefully considering partner to Blake. "I expected better from you! I thought if anyone could understand what it's like to be judged unfairly it would be you! You don't see me comparing you to cats just because you're a Faunus!" The red cloaked girl finishes only to cover her mouth as she realizes what she just said. Silence permeated the area, naught but bird chirps bounced between the trees. The heiress, mouth agape, took an instinctive step away from the outed catgirl, whose own features twisted in fear. Yang, to her credit, rolled her eyes and held down the bubble of mirth that worked it's way to her lips quite spectacularly.

"Wait. So lemme get this straight," Yang brought the the growing argumentative silence to a pause with a look of realization on her face. "Our team—Team RWBY, officially consists of: the introverted lesbian scythe wielding prodigy and her wolf-children, the cold-as-ice heiress of an overseas multibillionaire company, the badass ninja cat with trust issues, and the only talkative person here, the blonde with mommy issues."

Other than a brief blush and wide eyed surprise from Ruby, and Weiss's, "hey!" she received no argument.

"Well that's just fucking great."

"Wait, how did you know… that?" Ruby shifted her attention to her sister. While the early slip up wasn't resolved, this was welcome paused.

"What, your gaydom? Jaune can't keep his mouth shut. Told me a few months ago." Yang said, matter-of-factly. "To his credit, he probably wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't asked if he was dating you."

"...I don't know who to be more disappointed in. You or Jaune."

* * *

 **AN: Hello again. Sorry this chapter took so long. The only reason this is actually coming out today is thanks to Blacsparrow. He helped me write Blake, since I have no idea how to do so and kept writing myself into corners. Go give his stuff a read if you haven't. Everything he does is top teir. Next chapter should come out in a much more timely fashion, I hope. I've already got some of it written. Have a good day.**


	7. Bunkbeds

**AN: Here's the real chapter.**

* * *

The walk back was awkward to say the least. After Blake was outed, Weiss took very cautionary steps around the catgirl, and tried to keep the sisters between her and the heiress. Back there, when Ruby let her knowledge slip, the first thought to cross her mind was the worst case. That Blake was part of the White Fang, the terrorist group that has set its sights on her and her father's company. That now that everyone knew, she could turn any minute. As the minutes passed and it became increasingly obvious that was not true, Weiss did relax. She was no bigot, no idiot like her father. Winter made sure she knew better than that, but it didn't change the fact she had no idea what to do in this situation.

Blake kept her head low in acceptance of her situation and dread for the inevitable conversations. In her mind, she was scared. When Blake was called up to that stage and stood beside the heiress of the one and only Schnee Dust Company, she knew she could never allow knowledge of her heritage to get out. When Ruby let it slip in the forest, it felt like everything she had tried to build was coming crashing down around her. Despite her quiet, "leave me alone," demeanor during the banquet last night, she enjoyed the company, and the merriment she felt from her team and team JNPR. Even the heiress, whose ignorance of who she was made Blake comfortable enough to read a little. She had sacrificed a lot to be here at Beacon, to finally live her dream. Ruby nearly ruined that for her, and depending on the next few days very well might have.

Yang's mind was just as plagued with horrible thoughts. It was now clear that the infamous Xiao Long anger that both her and her father had was also present in Ruby, though lessened. While her little sister didn't burst into violence right out the gate, the shouting was there. But, worse than that, it didn't explain the Reaper's lack of reaction to the blood. That was what worried the brawler. For now, all she could do was blame Qrow and wait to see what it could mean.

Team RWBY walked through the sloshing mud and rain, which just got muddier and fell harder when they exited the treeline. In their hurry to get out of the rain, Weiss nearly tripped several times; her heels made the path a mess to walk. On the fourth tumble Ruby rolled her eyes and lifted the heiress off her feet. The girl's lithe form was no heavier than Crescent Rose. As much as Ruby enjoyed the idea of holding this beauty in her arms, she didn't want to make things more awkward. With a bright blush on her face and small eep from Weiss, Ruby zapped them over in front of the dorm building, and gently let her down.

As soon as Blake and Yang caught up, they walked in, left their boots by the door on the tile, and took the two rights and a left that brought them to RWBY dorms. The room was just as they left it, the beds crammed together two-by-two, with each smashed up against a desk, the two in the middle pulled inward diagonally. Desk, bed, bed, desk, desk, bed, bed, desk. The walking space at the foot of the beds wasn't great either. It would barely fit a desk and occupied chair without any walk-room between, should they put the desks at the foot of each bed. To top it off, Yang has already managed to sneak a couch into the room—two seats with beige leather cushions and mechanical leg rests—and Weiss has a makeup stand and mirror, "on the way."

"So what was the problem exactly," Ruby asked, her voice oozing sarcasm. "What is it with you two and having so much stuff?"

"Hey, homebase is homebase. It has got to be luxurious," her sister said, drawing out the last word nearly sensually.

"Finally, something I can agree with the brute on." Yang mock gasped at the insult, and threw a surprised face at Weiss for just a moment before shrugging at her sister.

"Why can't you be like me and Blake," the young leader asked. "We both have the bare minimum, and it does us fine."

A deadpan voice returned, "don't bring me into this."

Yang reached put and swept the ninja up in a one-armed hug, "you're apart of the team. Get used to it, kittycat."

"Don't touch me, and don't call me that."

Neither command was respected, "sure thing kittycat." Another argument broke out between the three eldest members of the team. Something about Blake claiming the nickname was racist, while Yang defended it as jest, and Weiss watched on in an attempt to understand the problem, occasionally throwing statements into the mix that get torn apart. Ruby just rolled her eyes and turned towards the problem at hand. It almost worked as it was. If the two middle desks were but a scant few inches short, everything would fit. Minus the awkwardness of sleeping practically on the same bed as another, of course. Separating each bed by a desk wouldn't make any difference spacewise, which left the only plausible fix.

"We could just make bunkbeds."

Silence erupted into the room as fast as though Ruby just said the world's most poorly told joke. The sentence seemed to slowly register into the team's minds. Weiss's face contorted with fear at the thought. Blake was too far gone in brooding over the unwanted contact and figuring out how best to escape. Yang, however, tightened her grip ever so slightly on Blake and smiled excitedly at the thought.

"Oh not you, too." Weiss groaned, the realization that she was outnumbered now three-to-one instinctively brought her hand to make contact with her forehead.

"What? It would be efficient, it would let Yang keep her couch, you keep your mirror-desk-thingy…" Ruby let her sentence fall off, her mind already filled with ways this could best be done. "Look, each bed has wooden posts. Two hours tops in the workshop, and I could machine some stakes to keep the beds stable. All that's left would be to drill holes in the posts and then problem solved!"

"Works for me. What do you say, Blake?" The blonde—still dressed in her nightwear from this morning—laid her eyes on the girl's visage. Her ears were pulled back in annoyance, face fallen into deadpan. "Oh come on, don't look so up in arms about it!" Yang immediately found herself pushed onto her behind by the catgirl, the room filled with the sound of her crash and two facepalms that echoed out from the red-white duo. Her pun—which the blonde found quite masterful—was rejected by her team.

"Oh come on! That one was good!"

"Does she do this often," Weiss asked, directed at the red sister.

"Unfortunately," Ruby returned after a lengthy sigh. After a moment of silence, the reaper turned to Blake, "so, your thoughts?"

"Yeah yeah do whatever. I'm going to wash the pun off my body." True to her words, the cat-in-black hurriedly grabbed some clothes and a towel, before she hopped into the shower behind a locked bathroom door.

The blonde—still on the floor—harrumphed in mock-sadness, before she lifted her face towards her sister again, "alright, but these beds are kinda short. There won't be enough space between beds to sit." The two sisters spent the duration of Blake's shower discussing the plan. Though Yang doesn't outwardly seem smart, she had to engineer Ember Celica from scratch at Signal, just like Ruby did with Crescent Rose. The brawler knew her way around the design process, but her sister was the one between them who enjoyed it. When the two settled on an idea, Ruby left to build it, followed by the heiress shortly before Blake came out of the bathroom. The catgirl capitalized on this silence, book in hand and pages flipped before she sat on her bed.

* * *

The workshop Beacon had to offer nearly sent Ruby into nerdgasm. The school was known throughout the Hunter world as the best academy for their line of work, and this room contributed quite well to that title. From an anvil and furnace for weapon repair, to table-saws, drill-presses, a lathe—every single appliance that could be imagined was there, updated models and all. Ruby could only imagine the niche circumstances in which every one of these was used over the course of Beacon's history.

Naturally, she brought her kids with her. To keep them out of the way, she set them up outside the door so they could warn her when someone approaches. All that left her to do was put her headphones on—a red pair with her rose emblazoned on the left speaker, which she got as a birthday present from her uncle during her stay—and get to work.

Noon approached, some two hours after she had started, and she had one set of four done. Now that she had it down to—practically—an art form, the next four would be done in the next hour. Having skipped breakfast, however, the reaper started to feel hungry. She stopped her work momentarily to compare the four "leg extension stakes." They had to be roughly the same size, or the top bunks would rattle slightly while sleeping in them. Not by much, but noticeable enough when you're sleeping in them.

'Owie!' Sköll's cry stole Ruby's attention, yipped out loud, and spoken across their mental connection. The mental connection wasn't something to be heard, it was more of a thought, which allowed it to be acknowledged clearly over their mother's loud music. Despite that, she still turned her music down a little in a futile attempt to make communication slightly easier.

'Hah! Payback,' Fenrir yelled back. 'That's what you get for the bedwarmer comment.'

'What did you do?'

'He bit Sköll's tail,' Hati returned in a tattle-tail tone, reminiscent of human children on playgrounds.

'Fenrir, stop antagonizing your brother,' the reaper sighed, which only got a noise of pure smugness from the guilty wolf in question.

"Hey Ruby?"

"Holy F-" her flinch caused a few tools and a box of nails to fly off the table Ruby had sat down at. Crimson hair whipped in front of silver eyes, her neck whisked around, which caused her headphones to narrowly avoid falling off. Stood a few feet away with a slightly amused smile was the heiress, two foam trays of food in her hands. "Oh hey Weiss. What are you doing here?" At the same time, she chastised her wolves, 'stop rough-housing and pay attention next time!'

"Well, I went to Professor Glynda's office to have a little chat with her, and then I went to the cafeteria seeing as it's lunch time. I thought I'd see you there, seeing as I had a question. You weren't, so I grabbed some food for the both of us and tracked you down." Ruby cleared table space for the two trays and offered the seat next to her, which Weiss graciously accepted.

"Well, okay. That's fair enough," Ruby replied, her arm outstretched to grab the fork, a faint blush on her cheeks, stamped down before it could cover her face. "I was actually just about to go to lunch anyway, but thanks for bringing it to me. You said you had a question?"

"Before we start, I must preface this by saying, you weren't exactly my first choice for this. As I said earlier, I visited Professor Glynda, and only her because I thought Headmaster Ozpin was busy enough with his duties. Professor Glynda told me to ask someone on my team instead, since that's what you're here for." Weiss stopped her sentence there, opting to take a bite of the potato salad she grabbed.

"That makes me feel so much better, now that you've explained that you didn't want to talk to me." The reaper rolled her eyes, then moved on, speaking over her attempt to open her milk carton. "Why do you call our teachers by their full titles like that?"

"They're our superiors, are they not? It's only respectful," Weiss said, as if it should have been obvious, to which Ruby nodded in acceptance, "But back to my question. It's about Blake. What should I do?"

Ruby's face contorted in confusion behind the carton she was drinking from. She asked tentatively, "what should you do about what…?"

The heiress's eyes narrowed, but elaborate she did. "I'm not my father. I despise that man more than a lot of things on this world. Yet, his bigoted views have subconsciously drilled themselves into my mind. I want to this team to survive, so I don't have to go back to Atlas and the company. To do that, I need to not act like an idiot. So, what should I do?" Weiss made it really difficult to ascertain her mood, her back rigid, arms in her lap, and face void of emotion. A more perceptive person would have been able to see the cracks in her facade—the embarrassment breaking through the professionalism—but Ruby was not that person. The reaper's lack of social skills from being a shut-in at her uncle's house for a year and a half certainly wasn't helping, though her more recent friendship with Jaune had helped build up some of what was lost.

There was a total flip in her composure, for it was thanks to that lack of social skills, Ruby began to stutter. "...I-I, uh, why me…" she ended meekly, the question just barely squeaked out. Weiss's left eyebrow shot up in confusion, not expecting… whatever that was.

"I didn't want to ask Yang. I… realize it seems petty, but I wanted to ask someone who would take me seriously, not the brute." The heiress was getting really tired of having to elaborate so much, but given her options this was worth the time.

"Literally any other topic would have been easier…" Ruby whispered to herself, before she attempted to regain her composure. She was appointed team leader by the headmaster himself. She could do this. A cough into her elbow and a drink of the carton of milk from her lunch, and she turned back to her partner.

"I… don't know. Honestly, if I were in your situation, I'd just tell Blake, and ask her for guidance. I don't think there's a better person on the planet to tell you how not to be… well, racist." Ruby's face slowly started burning up as she talked, a blush spreading on her face in full force. The heiress didn't seem to notice, or if she did, didn't care. Weiss turned over the advice with a slight hum, before she nodded to herself.

"I hadn't thought of that. I'll do that after lunch. Thank you Ruby," was all she said, before she returned to her lunch. Ruby quickly flipped her hood up, and sat the rest of the time in silence. Her blush slowly died out, and before she knew it, Weiss had left.

The reaper got straight to work to take her mind off her surprise blush. It didn't make sense to her—she was doing so well, then the heiress mentioned another person and her focus crashed.

* * *

Weiss hurried back to the dorm room, the only place she knew Blake would either be at, or return to soon. She opened the door to an empty room, and opted to wait on her misplaced bed. After a few minutes, the artificial light grated on Weiss's eyes, which led her to open the curtains and turn off the overhead. In her boredom, she cursed her father's parenting, opened her scroll to the SDC stocks, and simply studied the system's update progress over the last week.

An hour passed, with Weiss carefully combing through the data. The room was dead quiet, only the sound of her own breathing and the occasional noise from the hallway were audible. Low, droning noises emitted from outside lead Weiss to the conclusion Ruby went back to work on her solution.

Jiggling came from the dorm room door—the sound of a person unfamiliar with the new doorknobs of Beacon. Blake slipped in, the only sounds she made emanating from the door itself. The team's resident ninja was covered in sporadically placed red spots, and her book was close, her bookmarks moved at least a hundred pages since they last talked at lunch.

Blake's eyes fell on Weiss' form, and she asked quietly, "do you have any sunscreen? The leaves here aren't as effective at blocking sunlight as I'm used to."

Weiss' eyes widened slightly, "no. I hadn't thought about sunscreen. Atlas doesn't have that problem. Maybe Ruby or Yang has some?" She nodded, and turned for the door again. Weiss called out, "wait! Listen Blake, I want to talk."

"I don't."

"It'll be just a moment." Blake stopped and turned fully around, signaling Weiss to proceed, "I wanted to ask for your help. See, my… father… instilled his ignorant behaviors in me from a young age. I know better now, or rather, I like to think I do. Just, whenever you catch me saying something stupid about," Weiss mentioned towards Blake, "faunus, pull me aside and explain what I did wrong. I don't want my father's bigoted views to fill my perception of the world." Her entire spiel was said staring directly into Blake's eyes. A few moments passed, the shock of the situation slowly eased out of the girl's visage. Then, she smiled.

"Okay, I can do that. Thank you, Weiss."

"Why are you thanking me?"

"I didn't expect that from a Schnee. Makes me hope for the future. This morning, when Ruby blurted… my identity out, I was actually kinda scared. I had worked so hard to have this opportunity, and I thought it was all about to fall apart," Blake explained, then turned for the door without a moment for response.

Before the catgirl could touch the door handle, it was thrown open by the boisterous blonde. Lilac eyes scanned the room, her arms up trying to undo a ponytail and a track-and-field outfit in place of her normal get-up.

"Did I interrupt something," Yang asked, muffled by a hair tie in her mouth. Ruby popped into existence beside her sister, five blocky creations and a drill in arm and a veritable storm of rose petals that followed in wake.

"No. We just finished talking." Weiss smiled at the reaper in an attempt to nonverbally thank her, but she simply blushed and looked down. Now that she thought about it, Ruby did that a lot when around her. The heiress wasn't sure what it was. Did she embarrass her? Or something more? She didn't know.

White, black and gray hounds followed in Ruby's footsteps as always, one contraption in each mouth. The reaper set all six items in her arms by the door and, one by one, thanked her children for helping her carry the pieces. She began with the rightmost pair of beds, drilled into the posts and stacked the beds with the help of Yang. Then, after Weiss had gotten up, the same happened to the second pair. While still not perfect, the space saved from her idea was easily noticeable and a good start to be sure.

After Ruby made a quick trip to drop off the borrowed drill, team RWBY settled down into random bunks, no deal spoken about who got what bed. The gently wafted smell of pine slowly became less prevalent, and with a few hours left before the dinner call, Yang decided to act on an idea she had earlier.

"Hey Ruby, since we're all gathered around, why don't you explain your pets to everyone? I would like to know who stole my sister from me for a year and then some." The blonde sister's tone betrayed a sense of both sarcasm and near anger. Ruby got the point, however, instilled with a refreshed sense of guilt.

"Well, you know the beginning of it. I found them alone in the forest. There were no tracks leading to their den, and the last snow storm was at least a week before. Thinking back on it, I think that was probably when I unlocked their auras, though I didn't know that animals had auras back then."

"Does that mean they have semblances," asked Weiss, perplexed.

"Yeah," Ruby replied, jumping down from her bunk above the heiress to pet and find solace in her children, "I didn't think it would've been possible, either. Heh, imagine my surprise when Sköll first used his semblance. Big flaming rock formed in the sky and smashed an Ursa that was threatening Hati. Even though I've practiced with him to try and get that to happen again, Sköll hasn't been able to keep the rocks solid since."

"What about the other two, do you know theirs," Blake asked, her head sticking out above her book.

"Nope. My uncle said he had some theories, but never told me."

"How do you communicate, then," Yang asked this time.

"I don't understand it, but I can talk to them telepathically, like those superheroes I used to watch on TV back at Patch when I was younger." To prove it, Ruby mentally commanded Fenrir to grab her scythe and bring it to her. Blake seemed most surprised, whereas Weiss has seen this happen during the initiation already. Yang simply nodded her head.

Ruby continued, "they treat me like their alpha. I always take the first "bite" after a hunt—though I bring a granola bar for that instead—and they generally listen to and obey me."

Yang hummed, then spoke, "I think I have an idea. For the black one's semblance, I mean. Yesterday, when he found us in the forest, he jumped at me, but he looked ready to fight. His teeth were bared and claws out. Next thing I know, I was on the ground being loved up by and oversized Zwei. Maybe that was his semblance, and it is Fear-based?"

Ruby looked at Fenrir and considered this, humming and hawing. Without a word, she stood and commanded Fenrir to stand and try to scare her. The ebony wolf did as told, on all fours and nervously growling at his Alpha, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of challenging command. Nearly a minute later, the reaction she was looking for happened, though a bit... more.

To Weiss, Blake, and Yang, nothing happened.

To Ruby, however, the shadows in the corners twisted and crawled towards Fenrir. Both upper fangs grew to sabretooth-size, and the claws became more pronounced, glistening in shadow beneath the fur. Fenrir's concentration lasted but a second, and both Ruby and her son jumped, completely frightened by what they witnessed.

"Yeah I think you're right. That's enough for today, I'mma go have a lie down," Ruby said, then nodded to herself. She looked down at her kids, then at the bunkbeds again. An idea sprung into her mind.

"Hey Blake, can we trade bunks? I want to be able to let my kids in at night, but I know you don't like being around canines. You can take the top bunk and be completely out of their reach!"

Wordlessly, Blake hopped from bed to bed, not even touching the ground where the wolves were currently laying down. Yang smiled. Perhaps this team wasn't doomed to fail after all. Perhaps she could still salvage the Ruby she used to know.


	8. Clash

Team RWBY built a routine over the following week. Their mornings were much the same as the first night, though Ruby got more sleep now that her children could be nearer. Today, the members of team RWBY woke with the alarm, to their leader already up and nearly finished dressing, her red cloak clashing with the Beacon uniform.

"Good morning, Ruby. Why are you up so early," Yang inquired, before hopping off the bunk with a stretch, "and where are your wolves?"

"I let them out when I woke up so they could go hunt...and today's first-come-first-serve on cookies for breakfast. Don't wanna be late," Ruby replied, fastening her last boot before she left, the last sentence half-yelled through the door.

"That can't be healthy for her," Weiss remarked, her eyes affixed on the clock. The rest of the morning went without noise or further strangeness. Exiting the room, they found themselves amongst their peers, a wave of bodies pulled towards the promise of Monday's pancakes. A certain energetic redhead sped down the hallways, nearly crashed into Blake, and disappeared around the corner screaming about syrup. Nora's team tried to catch up, to no avail.

The remnants of team RWBY, just outside the cafeteria, reached the aftermath of what looked like a glorious fight. Part of the wall between two double doors had been "renovated" to fit a third. In a pile of debris, the recently-infamous leader of team CRDL lay unconscious. An older woman clad in extravagant brown clothes, a beret, and sunglasses stormed past, fuming and searching, presumably for the rest of his team. Yang took the lead, searching the cafeteria tables for Ruby's signature red cloak. The only sign of Ruby at their normal table was an abandoned tray full of cookies, which only served to worry the older sister further, before she spotted her, by chance, beside a tall Mistralian man, rabbit faunus, and darker skinned guy. Yang strutted over, Weiss and Blake not far behind.

As they got closer, more detail could be discerned. Ruby had her hood up, staring at the hands in her lap. It was clear she had been embarrassed by something.

"Hey, you okay, Ruby," Yang asked right away.

"Yeah, what happened here," Weiss followed up.

Seeing that Ruby was preoccupied with her own thoughts, the tall guy spoke up in a smooth but cut short voice, "hello. I'm Yatsuhashi. Your friend here was insulted by those bullies. Seeing as she wouldn't fight back, our leader, Coco decided to for her. She is most likely hunting down the rest of his team."

"Why would they insult Ruby?"

"He knew! I don't know how, but he did, and he started making fun of me about it." Ruby raised her face to look Yang in the eyes, bloodshot silver met lilac. "He knows I'm… gay, and he yelled it out loud in front of everyone so now everyone knows!"

While everyone started discussing possible ways Cardin could have found out, Ruby's words panged Blake's mind. She suddenly remembered the one detail about the day after initiation she forgot about. The rustling she heard behind them when they went to find Ruby. That's how. And it hurt Blake to only now realize it, after it was too late.

"I'm sorry, Ruby." All six of the gathered hunters-in-training turned to look at—or in Fox's case, listen at—Blake. "I forgot all about it. When we found you in the forest, I heard something following us. I didn't bring it up for reasons you now know, and I forgot on the way back."

Ruby snivelled, "it's okay Blake. I don't think it could have been prevented, if that is how they knew."

The sound of doors slamming open caused the seven of them to turn towards the back of the cafeteria, where an angry Coco strided in. She veritably stomped over, plopped herself in a stool, and looked Ruby dead in the eyes. The intensity of her gaze scared the reaper enough for her to release a meek sound.

"Listen, Freshy. You're a student at Beacon, the finest school for huntsman and huntresses this side of Remnant. This is a combat school, I don't care what Ozpin says about being a trade school now. If someone is picking on you, fight them. Especially someone as fucking pathetic as Cardin and his lackeys were. The teachers will not give a flying rat's ass about bullying here. It is expected that you can handle that on your own. Understood, missy? Next time I find you in trouble like that, I will not intervene, and I won't let anyone else either. Fight your own fights. Now, if you'll excuse me, I would actually like to eat breakfast this morning." And like that, she was gone again, disappeared into the crowd of people starting to line up for food.

At the escort of her team, Ruby returned to their usual spot across from JNPR, surprised to find her tray of cookies untouched. Unbeknownst to her team, the wolves have made multiple attempts to cheer her, including Hati's nearly successful break-in. Their mental support helped to keep Ruby's mind on track. She had school to focus on, not the inevitable reactions from people she hardly knew.

Their meal came to a close as the bell heralded the first of many passing periods. They received their schedules yesterday, shortly after news of the arrival of a new teacher. A large portion of freshmen and some sophomores were to attend morning combat with Professor Goodwitch. Teams RWBY and JNPR took their seats at the front of the auditorium, chatting while they could before class. The bell rang again, and the professor walked to center stage. The click of her heels was loud enough to hush most of the voices. All other conversations faded into the pressure of silence.

"Welcome to sparring and combat. Freshman, over the next month, I will evaluate how you fight by pitting you against your own team. This will let me see where you need to improve, and you will need to learn how your team fights. The key to successful teamwork is understanding. After your fight, you may discuss amongst yourselves, quietly, to figure each other out. Now, who would like to volunteer first?" Professor Goodwitch's introduction was no-nonsense and to the point. A second passed before a team near the back rose their hands, and the spars began.

Each fight was practically free-for-all, with no sense of priority behind the combatants' targeting. One team accidentally wiped themselves out before their fight could begin in a messy Dust explosion. Watching the fights pumped team RWBY's excitement through the roof. Yang fidgeted in her seat, subtly shadow-boxing as she watched. Weiss's hand occasionally grasped at the air where Myrtenaster usually sat. Even Blake was less subdued than normal, her book lain open across her lap and her attention on the stage. After the third fight, Ruby shot her hand skyward with all of her semblance behind it. Petals covered erupted forth, but a draft ultimately caused the roses to fall mostly on her team. They faded quickly.

"We'll go!" Ruby shouted at Professor Goodwitch's next prompt for volunteers. With a smirk at her enthusiasm, she nodded towards the young leader. RWBY followed their leader back to the lockers to change into combat gear and pick up their weapons.

The quartet gathered on the stage as the ring sprung to life, a blue glow that outlined the boundaries of their fight. As they took their stances—Weiss faced the audience, Ruby stood opposite, and Blake and Yang took either side—Ruby assessed the situation in her head. She knew Yang would have to go out first, or her semblance would win her the match. Weiss could very well have air superiority, and Blake… she still had yet to see her fight. The countdown began after each signaled their readiness; the glow shifted slowly from blue to red, and the fighters drew their weapons to the sound of subtle mecha-shift whirring.

The Reaper's scythe, tall and streamlined, poised on her shoulders like a good friend's hug. Almost as if it were an afterthought, Ruby flipped up her hood with her free hand. Petals flew freely, but dissolved back into the aether momentarily.

The Princess's rapier, thin and polished, held toward the ground in a duelist's challenge. A glyph sprung to life beneath her feet, glowing white and angled forward.

The Shadow's cleaver, wide and worn, gripped in a habitual manner at her hip, one hand on the cleaver-sheath; the other was ready to draw. Her eyes watched carefully, and her stance neutral.

The Brawler's gauntlets, short yet heavy, assembled themselves from compact form in an engineering marvel that took months of their wielder slaving away at Signal, though mostly for the grade. She assumed a boxer's ready stance.

On the word 'go,' Ruby blinked the distance between her and her sister, already throwing feint blows. The speed and ferocity caught Yang off guard. Block after block missed, but not a single opening was taken by Ruby's scythe. The rifle barked several times as Ruby built up momentum, her sights set on knocking Yang out before her semblance had a chance to activate.

Weiss altered the angle of her glyph backwards and rocketed into the air, surprised by Ruby's movement. Blake, for her part, kept calm and left the sisters to their devices, her eyes locked on Weiss's movements. She dashed over and sacrificed a clone to bounce off towards the airborne Schnee. Weiss landed on a gravity glyph upside down, part to get a vantage over the arena, and part to keep her skirt from falling. She quickly parried her teammate's risky draw-slash, but due to gravity, missed on the riposte. The heiress smirked regardless and dropped her glyph in favor of four vertical ones surrounding Blake. As she landed, the barrel on her rapier clicked over to white. Expertly, and without thinking of it, she weaved each glyph full of Dust to allow her semblance some tangibility. Weiss jumped between the glyphs with a degree of randomness to confuse Blake, who rapidly attempted to follow her movements with the amber eyes. With the last glyph spent, the duelist dashed towards her teammate, rapier aimed to stab.

The thin blade passed right through without any resistance. Slowly, 'Blake' dissolved, the guise of the clone replaced with a very confused Weiss. Her confusion lasted but a second, as a boot impacted into her side and slammed the heiress toward the sisters.

Ruby and Yang built a steady rhythm, the older sister no longer surprised by the younger's rapid advance. Instead, she was scared of her future in this fight if she didn't find a way out. She was no idiot. She knew exactly what her sister hoped to accomplish with all that momentum. Not only would it be efficient should it connect, it would hurt.

The white form of Weiss crashed into Yang as another feint went overhead. The scythe was already on its way back around before Ruby had a chance to react. As quickly as she could, she tried to slow Crescent Rose. Even with assistance of her semblance, the blade was moving too quickly. Brilliant streaks of cyan lit across Weiss's body in an instant, cracked like a pane of glass, but failed to fall away. Her aura maintained a sliver of strength to protect. Yang's glowed a brilliant orange, otherwise unfazed by the sudden and jolting appearance of the heiress.

Ruby jumped back, separated from her weapon. Her eyes were wide with horror at how unimaginably hard she hit her partner. She watched as the cyan light pulsed across her fair skin. A quick glance at the onlookers revealed several cringing faces at the sound of the impact, all moving in slow motion. Ruby deactivated her semblance, realizing it was still active. Her mind fell back in pace with time. Weiss fell the rest of the way to the ground, and the sound of her own impact reached the reaper's ears at last; a brutal smack of steel against flesh, subdued from slashing to bludgeoning in a way that only aura-shielding could accomplish, followed shortly by a single blaring buzzer that indicated she was, indeed, out of the match.

Blake glanced up at the aura gauges. Weiss hovered just above three percent and well out of the fight. Yang sat around thirty. Once they realized Weiss was still conscious—given away by the girl's cradling of her own head against the whiplash or headache she no doubt received from that blow—the shadow dashed after their leader, the easiest target available, considering her unarmed status. Ruby drew her handcannon from the folds of her cloak, her favorite—and only—'pocket' for three distinct reasons. With the aim she worked up under her uncle's tutoring, she successfully blew the heads off two clones before Blake was close enough to render her accuracy moot.

Ruby had never needed to rely on her handcannon in combat, save once or twice she used it as it was intended: a backup. Blake's abuse of her semblance—combined with Yang's guard of the disarmed scythe—effectively destroyed any of Ruby's opposition. Blades struck from every direction, and Ruby's semblance only delayed the inevitable.

The buzzer blared a second time as the red leader's aura dropped below twenty percent. Ruby pouted at the sound, before she trotted off to collect her scythe and help Weiss off the stage.

Yang felt her semblance creep up, a familiar static-like sensation that traveled across her body in echoing waves. The goosebumps bounced on the edges of her skin and back again. A smirk found its way crawling across her lips. Flames licked off her hair in waves, and each contributed to the crescendo that was her hidden power. Lilac irises flipped to red in a literal blink of the eye. She slowly walked toward her partner, biding her time, arms held up defensively.

Blake stared at her partner across the stage, softly breathing from the exertion against Ruby, and felt her aura start to block the pain from the lactic acids that plagued her muscles. Yang looked way too confident to be losing, especially by such a large margin. It put the shadow on edge. Something was up. Blake reached back and attached the large cleaver to the magplate between her shoulders. The mecha-shift in Gambol Shroud whirred to life as the blade folded against its pistol counterpart. A quick shot of aura lengthened the ribbon that attached to the hilt. Both hands grabbed the ribbon, and she began to twirl it.

Yang burst forward with help from her shotgauntlets, one foot on the ground as she reached Blake. The first fist punched clear through a clone, but thanks to watching Ruby and Blake fight, the second landed clean on her hip. As Blake flew, she had the wherewithal to toss Gambol Shroud, which wrapped itself around Yang's ankle. Blake's newfound momentum at the hands of her partner was enough to knock the brawler onto her ass. The shadow ripped her weapon away, and flicked her wrist to send it right back, the force of a gunshot helped it along.

The anger of Yang's semblance finally took over. She deflected the chain scythe head with her gauntlet, caught the ribbon, and wrapped it around her arm. The brawler yanked on it with all of her might. Blake flew toward her, and took the full brunt of her offhand, connected with the airborne girl's jaw. Simultaneous crunch and blare signaled the end of the match. Despite, Blake continued past Yang and landed a few feet in front of Ruby and Weiss. Ruby looked up at the gauges.

Yang Xiao Long — 25%

Blake Belladonna — 12%

Weiss Schnee — 4%

Ruby Rose — 60%

'Wait, what?' Ruby asked rhetorically across the telepathic connection with her wolves. The screen switched to a blank gauge.

Hati's voice replied, 'while we could still hear your thoughts, I couldn't feel your aura when you went onto the stage.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know.' Sköll and Fenrir confirmed they didn't know either, both unaware of what Hati was talking about. Ruby could only think of one variable different between the stage and everywhere else.

"Well done girls. Next?" Professor Goodwitch said, unphased. Yang and Blake returned to the locker rooms change into their Beacon uniforms once again, as Weiss and Ruby had during the fight. The duo returned to watch the very end of JNPR's fight, which, unsurprisingly, Pyrrha won. Ren and Nora teamed up against the renowned fighter, while Jaune kept throwing himself against the wall that is the three of his teammates. No more teams volunteered, so Professor Goodwitch began calling teams down. Ruby sat, antsy to ask Goodwitch a question after class, but paid attention nonetheless.

The fights continued, and the remaining three gathered the rapt attention of the students. Admittedly impressive displays of ability alongside a general lack of knowledge of their members, worked against each other for interesting and unpredictable fights. One fight in particular took 20 minutes of combat; one kid's semblance proved too good at defense.

The class drew to an end, minutes ticking down. Purple glyphs sprung to life, chunks of stone thrown at high velocity back into the column they existed previously. The column glowed a bright orange and started to slowly cool, now repaired by the Professor's semblance and a dash of Burn.

"Mr. Winchester, next time, do not strike the support beams as a show of force," Goodwitch berated the musclely bully from breakfast. The Professor turned towards the class.

"Second years, the mission boards are open to you. In a month, you are expected to choose a mission for your first unsupervised hunts. You have been warned, there will be no excuses. Good luck." She clicked her heels, followed like clockwork by the dismissal bell. Ruby told her team to go on, then flashed to Professor Goodwitch's side.

"Ah, Ms. Rose. How can I help you?" she asked, her tone curious.

"Uh, hi. I was wondering what that glow was around the arena? I've never seen something like that," Ruby asked, a hand gesturing to the edge of the platform and into the air, where it stopped inches from the ceiling during the fight.

"That is a gift that was donated to us by the Atlas military. They developed the technology to cancel out semblances. It turned out to be too large for an individual soldier's use, and passing through it does nothing to a Hunter, making it impractical for security."

"Oh, that's really cool! Thank you," Ruby said, before disappearing to gather her backpack from the back of the now empty room. The revelation filled her mind with possibilities, both her own thoughts and those of her children.

* * *

 **AN: Sorry this took so long. School beat me up so I had to put it back in line, and this chapter was difficult to write. I am really proud of the fight scene, though.**

 **I have some announcements. First, I will be editing the previous chapters before chapter 9 comes out. Quite frankly, I used to suck at tensing and I need to fix it. It's such a glaring problem. Second, I have two half-completed chapters for two different stories I'm working on. One based on fanart by Sorairo-Wolf on Deviant Art, and the other is my return to the RWBY x Star Wars fandom. Most people don't know it, but my first story on Fanfiction was a crossover called RWBY: Force Echoes. It was bad.**

 **And, as always, my probably-accidentally-omitted-sometimes thank you and recommendation. Blacsparrow has been doing beta work on this story since chapter two. He's written two important scenes, as well. Go check out his page (my personal favorite of his stories is Black Rock Huntress).**


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